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•:■": MAN: 
Whence and Whither? 



By 

Alcinous B. Jamison, M.D. 

Author of " Intestinal Ills," " Intestinal Irrigation/ 

" How to Become Strong/* " Chronic 

Intestinal Poisoning," etc. 



* 



With an Introduction by 

* John Emery McLean 

Former Editor of Mind and The Metaphysical 



Copyright, 1922, by Alcinous B. Jamison 



Published by the Author 

New York 

43 West 45th Street 



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.SEP 20 1922" 

©CI.A681881 



MAN: Whence and Whither? 



INTRODUCTION 

Having been privileged to read the original manuscript 
of this book, I gladly accept the author's invitation to 
"criticise" it in a few introductory paragraphs. 

Dr. Jamison is widely known as a successful practi- 
tioner in a special field of medicine, and for his numerous 
contributions to medical literature. But it will come as a 
surprise to many of his friends and most of his profes- 
sional brethren to learn that he is gifted with a clairvoyant 
faculty that enables him to see certain things and discern 
operations of natural law that are at present hidden from 
more than ninety-nine per cent, of the human race. 

The work is not the outcome of any "course of read- 
ing," nor of philosophic reflection, nor of intellectual 
speculation. It is the result of direct psychic perception, 
and may be described, briefly, as an inquiry into racial 
origins, evolutionary processes, and the spiritual destiny 
of mankind. The line of thought is not consecutive, the 
chapters being presented in the form of essays that relate 
to various aspects of the weighty theme — the primal 
source and ultimate goal of the genus homo. • 

While much space is devoted to a consideration of the 
eternal purpose of man's existence on the earth and else- 
where, the book derives a peculiar timeliness from the 
current recrudescence of the old conflict between theology 
and evolution. Although Dr. Jamison apparently con- 

5 



/ . . I 

^ 6 Introduction \ 



cedes the applicability of the Darwinian theory to the de-C 
velopment of ty/>e.y, and in tracing man as a corpormljt^ 
organism to an anthropoidal ancestry, he parts company W 
at this point with both the evolutionist and the theologian; 
for he holds that the real man is a spiritual being and has 
never been anything else. 

The fundamental weakness of Darwinism lies in its 
failure to account for the uniqueness of man — his exclu- 
sive possession of the faculty of imagination* Within the 
annals of recorded time there has^ not been the slightest 
structural change in the bee-hive, the ant-chamber, the 
spider's web, the beaver's dam, or the nest of any bird; 
iwhereas the abode of the human being has undergone 
thousands of modifications and improvements from the 
time of the rock-cave dweller to that of the occupant of 
a modern royal palace. The difference is due solely to 
the fact that man has an imaging faculty that "alt-iother 
creatures are without. 

It is not surprising that certain orders of animate being 
that inhabit the same plane, draw their sustenance from 
the same source, are subject to the same environmental 
limitations, are equipped with the same physical senses, 
and. are forced to reproduce their kind in the same way, 
should present certain anatomical similarities. But the 
creative power of mind displayed by man alone is shown 
by Dr. Jamison to point to a wholly different origin for 
this highest order of earthly life. 

There is a vital distinction between the evolution of 
types and the evolution of species. Nature is jealous of 
infringements upon the latter, and even frowns upon the 



Introduction 7 

mixture of human breeds. In Mexico and our own South 
it is the half-breed that displays the most marked criminal 
tendencies. The pure-bred Indian is not often a rebel at 
heart. The coal-black negro is seldom lynched. When 
man attempts to interfere with natural law by crossing the 
horse with the donkey, a mule results ; but the mule does 
not reproduce itself. This sterility of the hybrid tends to 
refute the evolutionary claim of the mutation of species. 

The author seems to accept to a limited degree the 
principle of reincarnation as explaining Nature's method 
of leading the individualized entity from lower to higher 
planes of consciousness and causation. He has little sym- 
pathy, therefore, with affirmations that are based upo* 
the Biblical story of man's "descent." The indictment of 
Pauline Christianity presented by the inception, duration 
and barbarities of the World War, and by the crimes, 
miseries' and degeneracies that have followed in its wake 
after nineteen centuries of dogmatic teaching, discounts 
the value of literal interpretations of New Testament 
theology as well as of the biology and anthropology of 
Genesis. 

The advent of Darwinism served to accentuate the 
dawn of doubt, which decreed the doom of dogma. It is 
everywhere evident, therefore, that the religious world of 
today is in urgent need of a new revelation. Perhaps in 
the following pages we have a preliminary glimpse of 
what awaits us in the future life, combined with a rational 
attempt to blend true science with true religion — to their 
mutual profit. 

Some of Dr, Jamison's assumptions will not be in- 



8 Introduction 

dorsed or accepted by the strict logician or the scientist 
accustomed to measure everything by the yardstick of 
materialism. Yet we must admit that the inventor of the 
multiplication table, which forms the basis of our only 
exact science (mathematics), was obliged at the outset 
to assume the existence of the unit. 

The author's faith and confidence in the accuracy of 
his own psychic observations and the reality of his experi- 
ences will be shared only by those who have trodden the 
same occult path of investigation. Yet scores of the 
commonplace facts and scientific verities and utilities of 
today were among the dreams of 'Visionaries" of an 
earlier date. 

Dr. Jamison makes no pretense of literary excellence 
nor presumptuous claims of originality; yet in an epoch 
of intellectual transition like the present, in which most 
of his conclusions have the full indorsement of such pro- 
found thinkers and scholars as Sir Oliver Lodge, Sir 
William Crookes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Professor 
Charles Richet, it would seem that his book is worthy of 
an unprejudiced perusal. It is certainly a unique and 
significant addition to the metaphysical literature of our 
time. 

John Emery McLean. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — The Origin of Man n 

II. — Qualities of Incarnate Satanic Man . . 18 
III. — The Study of Psychonomy and Psy- 

CHOGENY 28 

IV. — The Spirit's Need of Physical Endeavor . 35 

V. — Unfoldment and Environment .... 43 

VI. — Development of the Immortal Senses . . 50 

VII. — The Phenomena of Thought 58 

VIII. — Identification of Excarnate Beings . . 66 

IX. — Some Factors of Man's Environment . . 78 

X. — Thought Phenomena and the Environ- 
ment of Being 89 

XL — Man and his Excarnate Companions . . 96 

XII. — The Designer and its Phenomena . . . 105 

XIII. — -Man's Indecision as to the Purpose of 

Existence 112 

XIV. — Faith and Knowledge 119 

XV. — Evolving a Practical Religion .... 125 

XVI. — Thought Stimuli 132 

XVII. — Knowledge a Child Should Acquire . . 138 



PREFATORY NOTE 

The author's object in presenting to the reader in this 
volume an impressionist word-picture of the operations 
of God through unvarying natural laws is to suggest a 
critical, logical, and intellectual conception of the domains 
of philosophy and religion. 

It may be regarded as presumptuous on the part of the 
author to attempt even a partial solution of so vast a series 
of problems. But it is his hope that others will carry on 
the study of these questions, so that, like many other seem- 
ingly insurmountable problems in Nature, they may event- 
ually be solved or at least greatly clarified. 

A. B. J. 



10 



MAN: Whence and Whither? 



CHAPTER I 

THE ORIGIN OF MAN 

Mind is a unit of consciousness and of motion, and 
its armor or instrument is called spirit, an uncreated, 
indestructible, archetypal form, or organism, from which 
and through which all natural phenomena are made 
manifest. 

There is but one archetypal psychic substance (call it 
an element, if you like) in Nature, and this is made up 
of organized units of mind, each clothed in an armor 
or instrument called spirit. We are told that God is a 
Spirit and is immanent, or present, in all the diversified 
phenomena of Nature, and that He created the phe- 
nomenon called man in His own image and after His 
likeness — potentially, we should add. 

Innate in every spirit organism there is the divine 
essence, together with its attributes, its law, and its 
creative power (called the word), and collectively or in 
varied aggregations these constitute and make possible 
the incarnate phenomenal world and the natural laws that 
govern all of its diversified functions. 

Behind and within all the varied phenomena of Nature 
we find mind, or spirit, as a factor and as a recipient; 
we therefore make no mistake when we say that all is 
mind, or spirit. Thought is a word, and in the begin- 

ii 



12 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

ning of the creation of a world it is the word, which is 
ever being made manifest through the laws of integra- 
tion and disintegration, or incarnation and excarnation, 
governing all the diversified phenomena of a world and 
its countless forms of incarnate and excarnate life. 

There is no empty space, or vacuum, in Nature. Space is 
only seemingly empty — empty only to those who have lim- 
ited vision. There is no mystery, there are no secrets in Na- 
ture for those whose comprehension is sufficiently devel- 
oped to observe natural phenomena with unclouded vision. 

Spirit is in all and through all, pervading, inhabiting, 
and functioning in the immense region called space. The 
aggregate of phenomena in any region that is more 
densely incarnated than the rest is called a planet, and 
this is actually not greatly unlike the immense region 
which those of limited observation designate as space. 

The innate, involved, latent power possessed by spirit 
is a mental dynamic force that seeks to_ express itself 
and is called forth through the operation of need, want, 
and desire, which are the basic factors in the evolution 
of mind, or spirit. 

Spirit in its involved state seeks to unfold its poten- 
tial attributes of mind, and in consequence it puts forth 
its primal creative effort, which naturally results in the 
simplest form of embodiment or incarnation in the 
phenomenal world. In order to sustain its created armor 
or instrument, which is so essential in the phenomenal 
world, it must contend with many obstacles that tend to 
interfere with its incarnate existence; and this struggle, 
like its creation of a body, develops its mental powers by 
the stimulating activity of thought. Sooner or later it 
must succumb to the destructive forces that environ it, 
and then excarnation takes place, adding another chapter 
to its mind-unfoldment. 



The Origin of Man 13 

The excarnated spirit's mind continues to express its 
needs, wants, and desires, and again it puts forth its 
creative effort, with greater confidence due to its past 
experience. Thus each cycle of the phenomena we call 
respectively birth, incarnate existence, and death produces 
another chapter in the development of its mind and of 
its power of thought. And the dauntless spirit in the 
course of its evolution passes through countless cycles 
of this kind, perhaps during billions of years, as it wends 
its way toward its spiritual and mental goal. 

Nature's Cosmic School takes no account of the time 
and labor that the evolving spirit must expend in the 
cosmic incubator — that is, in the more ethereal incarnate 
regions or in the denser region called the earth. The 
dynamic urge and push from within the mind increases 
as experience and knowledge are gained in consequence 
of the spirit's ceaseless efforts and laborious struggle in 
the cosmic thought-incubator, in which it is compelled 
to think more and more as new chapters of gestation, 
birth, sin, sickness, sorrow, and death are multiplied for 
the attainment of some purpose or end of which it knows 
naught. Being a child of Nature, and not knowing from 
what distant port it has set sail or what harbor it is 
destined to reach in the end, the spirit endures the stern, 
relentless, unpitying, merciless tutorship of Nature, which 
hears no prayer because the mind of its ward is utterly 
unprepared to pray. 

Up through each conscious plane of existence, as 
through a graded school, the ascending spirit wends its 
way through many cycles of gestation, birth, and incar- 
nate and excarnate life, attended by labor, sin, sickness, 
sorrow, and death as its tutors, thus simply obeying the 
law of need, want, and desire — a potential, innate law 
of mind existing within its own organism as a means 



14 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

to further its own ascent to a physical, mental, and spir- 
itual goal as yet exceedingly remote. 

Gestation of a spirit within the womb of an incarnate 
planet permits of no estimate of the time when such 
spirit, now dependent, will attain a higher plane of con- 
sciousness and become a law unto itself. As one geologi- 
cal period followed another in the history of the forma- 
tion of the earth's crust, all the phenomena of the ascend- 
ing scale of being were manifested in conformity with 
the various changing planetary conditions. In conse- 
quence of this progressive creative effort, which was 
compatible with the ascent of spirit, there was a con- 
stant gain in experience, knowledge, and ability to think; 
and, urged and pushed from within by needs, wants, 
and desires, the spirit strove to attain greater physical 
efficiency — a most essential attainment for the sur- 
vival of the fittest in mental activity and physical 
dexterity. 

From the time of the first incarnation of spirit to the 
period when it acquired the ability to incarnate in a 
form that slightly resembled the phenomenon called man, 
countless epochs marked its mental and physical ascent; 
and from that period to the incarnation of the ape-like 
man there elapsed another immense period of time, which 
was followed by still another great interval before the 
manifestation of the phenomenon of articulate man. At 
this epoch the spirit in its long ascent attained the ability 
to incarnate, though in a primitive way, in its archetypal 
form, or in the image of spirit, but it still possessed an 
animal consciousness dominated by ignorance and re- 
sembled the savages such as even now inhabit portions 
of the earth, being mentally and physically not greatly 
unlike the gorilla, orang-outang, and chimpanzee, which, 
like the savage tribes of the earth, also inhabit certain 



The Origin of Man 15 

regions of this planet and have a language commensurate 
with their mental and physical development. 

Perhaps fifty to a hundred thousand years have been 
added to the age of Mother Earth and Father Time 
since the first dawn of the crowning effort of creation, 
when there came into existence a grotesque caricature 
of what the incarnate phenomenon called man should be. 
And yet, despite this lapse of time, the incarnate form 
known as man is still a physical gargoyle and a mental 
tyke, fastened to the old wheel of time and going through 
the cycle of gestation, birth, and incarnate existence with 
its attendant drudgery, sin, sickness, sorrow, and ultimate 
dissolution. Death, the termination of incarnate exist- 
ence, again casts the individual being into the excarnate 
world, about which it knows no more than it does about 
the phenomenal world from which it was dispossessed 
for lack of mental funds. So the shuttle of evolution 
has kept up the movement back and forth in order to 
weave an incarnate form in the image and after the 
likeness of God. 

For the period of perhaps more than eight thousand 
years of which we have some knowledge, Mother Nature 
and Father Time have been recasting their incarnate 
products, constituting so-called civilization. While civ- 
ilization has seemingly risen and fallen, spirit-man has 
continued to be bound to the ever-moving shuttle, pass- 
ing back and forth between incarnate and excarnate 
existence, as do also the ape-like men, dumb animals, 
and the lesser incarnate forms of life that creep or 
crawl, swim or fly. All accompany proud man back and 
forth in the stern, unpitying, merciless cosmic shuttle; 
for Nature's law takes no account of the being's suffer- 
ing due to labor, sin, sickness, sorrow, or death. Nature's 
activities are directed toward developing each of its de- 



1 6 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

pendents into a beautiful and symmetrical incarnate being 
in the image of God and endowed with a godlike mind 
that knows no error in creative efforts. Each being thus 
becomes one with the innate law and attributes of its 
own mind, the creator of all things on earth and in the 
regions of less density which those deficient in sight 
call ' 'space.' ' 

Mother Earth and Father Time have not yet succeeded 
in unfolding a God-fearing civilization of incarnate men 
on this planet; hence the grotesque, burlesque beings 
masquerading today in the guise of civilized nations. A 
being should not be classified as man merely because of 
the nature of the form in which he is incarnated, so 
long as he possesses only an animal consciousness and 
the five physical senses for the gathering of information 
that he has in common with the lower animals that also 
inhabit the earth. He has needs, wants, and desires — as 
have the insects, the ox, the horse, and the lion; and he 
performs the same functions, generally speaking, as his 
animal fellow-creatures. They do not know whence they 
come, what the purpose of life is, or whither they go. 
Neither does spirit-man in his partially developed state; 
therefore he is called the king of beasts — Satanic man, 
the most colossally destructive creature that Nature has 
produced in her effort to evolve a being incarnated as a 
perfect replica of its Creator. 

So far in our word-picture of the working of natural 
laws we have described the origin of Satanic man, a 
very ancient historical character and personality, who 
resides in both the incarnate and excarnate realms of 
ignorance in order to be able to remain in close touch 
with Satanic fellow-beings, whose minds are constantly 
filled with woes and regrets and with forebodings of 
dire calamities and catastrophes following one another 



The Origin of Man 17 

in close succession. The mind of each being has thus 
been shown to pass through innumerable psychological 
periods, just as the earth has passed through geological 
periods, so that fossil ideas and creations may be 
destroyed and be replaced with something better and 
more modern. 

The unsatisfied needs, wants, and desires ever in the 
Satanic being's mind may require more than forty thou- 
sand years of the same old refining process of Nature, 
in which the mask of the evolving being will be fre- 
quently changed by the successive processes of the cycle 
of birth (incarnation), life (incarnate existence), death 
(excarnation), and life after death (excarnate existence), 
which cycle must be repeated over and over until at 
length the animal consciousness of Satanic man is con- 
verted into a refined product of Nature entitled to be 
called Man, the son of God. 



CHAPTER II 

QUALITIES OF INCARNATE SATANIC MAN 

Innate in the incarnate being called man we find the 
essence, the law, and the attributes of mind. One of 
the functions of this being is to think, and with every 
thought he sends forth the creative word, which becomes 
manifest in his organism and in the phenomenal world 
that environs him. Such manifestation results in accord- 
ance with the law governing the accretive process of 
creation or incarnation, which signifies the calling to- 
gether of numerous sentient units, or servitors, the aggre- 
gations of which constitute the sentient structural material 
necessary to complete the particular thought-creation, for 
whatever purpose it may be designed. 

In order that an excarnate being may function in 
the incarnate human form, it must create through this 
accretive process an armor or instrument in which it 
can exist and function in the particular kind of environ- 
ment that it desires to enter for the purpose of gaining 
experience and knowledge and of thus further unfolding 
its potential mental as well as physical powers. 

The incarnate protective equipment of the being called 
man is not adapted to the environmental conditions of 
life in the material elements known as water and air. 
Hence he creates for himself an armor or instrument 
called a diving-suit, and with the protection that this 
affords he is able to exist and function in the watery 
depths, thus gaining experience and knowledge concern- 

18 



Qualities of Incarnate Satanic Man 19 

ing the life phenomena of the incarnate inhabitants that 
possess bodies able to exist and function in that par- 
ticular sentient element or substance, which also con- 
stitutes a part of the phenomenal world. He has like- 
wise created the necessary bodily protection and means 
by which he can exist and function in the sentient sub- 
stance called air, which occupies so-called space and is 
filled with incarnate world-stuff of slightly less density 
of life-embodiment than the region known as the earth, 
yet presenting all of the earth's phenomena in a more 
ethereal form. 

Nature has many diversified kindergartens and schools 
that serve as a continuous series of aids to the evolution 
of the mind and of its psychophysical instrument, which 
is modified or. changed to suit the plane of conscious- 
ness it has reached in the phenomenal world. 

Nature's Cosmic School naturally has many grades of 
mental and physical advancement, as indicated by the 
stupendous array of life units that, singly and collectively, 
annihilate the thought of space and of the seeming empti- 
ness separating the planets and the stars, which present 
to the undeveloped mortal senses of spirit-man a more 
densely incarnated series of phenomena than do the limit- 
less contiguous regions. 

The incarnated Satanic being that is improperly classi- 
fied as man is a natural product of the evolution of the 
mind and its attending physical phenomena that so re- 
cently emerged from the lower incarnate conscious plane 
or domain of Nature. He must naturally continue in 
his slow ascent from the animal plane of mind and form, 
since the mind and body he now possesses are only 
caricatures of the ideal mind and body yet to be 
attained. 

The spirit being, up to the time of its present denser 



20 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

incarnation as man, possessed a personality and an indi- 
viduality that represented the sum total of its mind un- 
foldment, and in passing through the psychophysical 
accretive process of gestation there were also grafted on 
the incarnating being's mind and body in a greater or 
less degree the personality and individuality of the par- 
ents, together with the conglomeration of engrafted 
ancestral traits of mind and body accumulated during 
the past hundred million or more years. These ancestral 
traits constitute a menagerie, exhibiting inherited mental 
and bodily characteristics of tailed, narrow-nosed African 
and Asiatic man-like apes (not to mention ape-like men), 
of the gorilla and the orang-outang, of wild and domestic 
animals, and of other creatures that might be mentioned 
as phases in the earlier stages of the evolution of the 
being destined ultimately to be manifested in the true 
image and after the likeness of God. 

The extreme regret and humiliation that we now 
experience are due to the fact that the~ being properly 
called Satanic man has disgraced his long line of decent, 
Nature-abiding ancestors by all sorts of dissipation too 
vile to discuss in detail, such as the use of alcoholic 
beverages and narcotic drugs, sex abuse, gormandizing, 
and neglect of all the laws of mental and bodily health 
and growth. Therefore he cannot properly be classed 
either as an animal or as a man, but has the distinction 
of being called by the Biblical writers a Satanic being 
— a cognomen to which there has been no objection up 
to the present time. 

Now, what is all this pandemonium of deviltry in the 
mind of the Satanic man for? And what good or bad 
service is it likely to render him in the future? 

From the time when mind, or spirit, uttered the cre- 
ative word and incarnate phenomenal existence began, the 



Qualities of Incarnate Satanic Man 21 

operation of Nature's immutable law of mind has com- 
pelled spirit-man to think more and more, whether wrong 
or right, abnormally or normally; and, while placing no 
restriction on his thinking, it has forced him to abide 
by the inevitable consequences of his mental output, in 
accordance with the law of cause and effect, however 
painfully disastrous or enjoyably good it may have been. 
The mind of a being can evolve only by incessant think- 
ing, and by normal creative efforts keeping pace with 
the newest need, want, or desire, which stimulates in turn 
more active thought and new creative powers that have 
no limitations if they are normally used when normal 
conditions exist on the planet. 

Will it be possible for the diversified incarnate regions 
of this section of the universe to continue their normal 
existence and functions of evolution long enough to 
evolve a phenomenon that may be described as man in 
the image and after the likeness of God? The history 
of the rise and fall of so-called civilization and the present 
deplorable state of mundane affairs may indicate that 
Nature's Cosmic School will soon cease to function, and 
that its disintegration, or involution, will take place, thus 
relegating all the dependent things in the school to some 
storage plane to await the development of a new world. 

Ignorance has always greatly handicapped spirit-man, 
as the following dialogue will make plain : 

"Whither goest thou?" said the angel. "I know not." 
"And whence hast thou come?" "I know not." "But who 
art thou?" "I know not." "Then thou art man. See that 
thou turn not back, but pass on to the place where thou 
shouldst go." 

Proud spirit-man is quite as ignorant of the whence, 



22 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

the purpose, and the whither of his existence as the 
gorilla, the orang-outang, ape-like man, and the creep- 
ing, crawling, swimming, and flying creatures that are 
his companions. 

Do the five mortal senses of the incarnate being known 
as man give him any more information about his environ- 
ment than the physical senses possessed by the pig, horse, 
ox, or lion? They hear and know the language of their 
kind; they see and feel the phenomenon of birth; they 
know how to struggle for existence, procreate, and care 
for their young ; they are acquainted with death ; they feel 
heat and cold, hunger and thirst; they know day and 
night, land and water, and the change of the seasons; 
they are intuitive and impressionable; they reason from 
cause to effect; and finally, they feel fear of danger and 
terror of death when they see, smell, hear, or otherwise 
discern the approach of man, the arch-enemy of all in- 
carnate life on land and in the water and in the air. 

Practically the entire population of the earth classified 
as civilized man does not gain any more information 
through the use of the five mortal senses than do the 
animals and all the varied lower species of incarnate life 
that environ Satanic man. 

Every incarnate being of the type we have described 
as Satanic man is, like his ancestors, bound to Nature's 
shuttle and is shoved back and forth from one incarnate 
state of existence to another, all the while subject to sin, 
sickness, sorrow, death, and subsequent rebirth because 
he will not think normally and thus unfold the innate 
potential creative powers of his mind. Few individuals 
think at all, and they but seldom. 

Nature issues no free pass into her storehouse. You 
have to pay the full price at once for value received. 
Abnormal aversion to thinking and working creates 



Qualities of Incarnate Satanic Man 23 

excessive thirst for pleasure to pass away the time. 
Hence the prevalence of lawlessness and the attitude of 
revolt against government, indicating the disintegration 
of our semi-civilization brought about almost wholly by 
the predominance of the animal consciousness of the 
multitude over the understanding, vision, and spiritual 
enlightenment of the truly civilized minority, who know 
the whence, the purpose, and the whither of the incarnated 
being called man. 

The semi-animal consciousness that Satanic man 
possesses accounts for his lack of desire to think and 
to work. Hence he is content, like the animal, with 
food, comforts, safety, and kindergarten amusements to 
while away the time from the cradle to the grave. Mental 
and physical laziness is the dominant trait of his char- 
acter; hence his blind acceptance of authorities and his 
notion that everything desired ought to be supplied with- 
out effort on his part. 

Animals are innately lazy creatures, and so is the 
animal-minded being called man; consequently, it takes 
psychological calamities of one sort or another to drive 
man to think and to find a way out of Mammon's 
dilemma. Thus he gradually learns to dispel the ancient 
Lethe that has so long put his brain to sleep, and comes 
to realize the purpose of his life and the rich inheritance 
in store for him if he will but think and act normally. 
Not one per cent, of the people of the earth are really 
doing anything worth while. The thinkers, the doers, 
the inventors, the benefactors of the world have been 
jeered at, despised, and persecuted by the very people 
they sought to benefit and befriend. Satanic man's 
redemption or emancipation from ignorance can come 
only through knowledge of the fundamental laws of 
Nature. 



24 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

In this connection it is of interest to note the views 
of the eminent scientist, Professor Ernst Haeckel, who 
tells in one of his books, entitled "The Riddle of the 
Universe," how in his opinion the bodies of human 
beings were first formed. As stated in simple language 
by Herbert N. Casson, his ideas are as follows: 

"For thousands of years it was believed to be wicked for 
people to learn how their own bodies were formed. No one, 
not even a physician, was allowed to take a dead body to 
pieces for the purpose of studying how it was made. Any 
man who did this was put in prison or sentenced to death. 
The name of the first man who was brave enough to find 
out the facts was Vesalius, a Belgian physician. He was 
sentenced to death because of his knowledge, but escaped 
and fled to a foreign country. He was chased from place 
to place, and soon afterward lost his life in a shipwreck. 

"Sixty-five years ago it was discovered that every human 
body as well as every other living thing is made up of 
millions and millions of tiny cells, just as a beach is made 
up of tiny grains of sand. Some animals are so low and 
so small that they are made up of only a single cell. Under 
the microscope they look like tiny jelly-fishes. They are 
called the Infusoria and the Rhizopods. A human body is 
composed of millions of these little cells of ever so many 
different kinds. 

"So far as our bodies are concerned, we are very much like 
the lower animals. For instance, a man has the same kind 
of backbone as a cow or a horse. The arm of a man and 
the wing of a bird are made of the same sort of bones. The 
skeleton of a frog is very much like that of a man. 

"Apes are nearest to men in the way that their bodies are 
made. They have five fingers, thirty-two teeth, and 200 
bones, just as a man has. There is gray matter in their 
brains, just as there is in ours. In fact there is more re- 
semblance between the body of a man and that of an ape 



Qualities of Incarnate Satanic Man 25 

than there is between an ape and a baboon, which is the 
lowest and most stupid kind of monkey. Apes have a family 
life of their own. They are not guilty of some of the crimes 
that occur in the cities of civilized human beings. They are 
only a few degrees lower than some tribes of savages. 

"The highest thing in the world is a human mind; yet 
there is not a thing in the mind of man which cannot be 
traced up from the mind of the lower animals. Any one 
who has taken notice of dogs and horses knows that they 
hae good memories, that they know right from wrong, and 
can love, hate, be glad and be sorrowful, just as a human 
being can. 

"If you want to know how a plant's mind grows up to be 
an animal's mind, or how brains are made, all you have to 
do is to look around you and take notice of all kinds of living 
things. You will notice that all living things can feel, move, 
and act when they are touched. All living things have a 
memory of some kind and what we may call ideas. Even 
plants and trees have a certain kind of ideas. If a tree is 
growing close to a wall, it knows enough not to put out any 
branches on that side which is nearest to the wall. 

"Even the lowest living things have their likes and their 
dislikes. They try to get what they like and to keep away 
from what they do not like. It was these likes and dislikes 
that made them begin to think, and the clever animals got 
along better than the stupid ones. The first human beings, 
of course, were stupid and brutish compared with us; but 
they were clever when compared with the lower animals. 
Little by little they learned more and climbed higher and 
higher. They were always struggling to get enough food 
and to protect themselves from their enemies. This con- 
stant struggle made them grow wiser and wiser, until at 
last after many ages civilization began." 

In considering the process of evolution, let us recall 
the dictum of Herbert Spencer: "We are ever in the 



26 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

presence of an infinite and enternal Energy, from which 
all things proceed." 

The evolution of spirit through all the varied forms 
of life in Nature finally resulted in its archetypal form 
of spirit, which was the last creative effort physically. 
This personality was called man and pronounced good 
potentially. During the long ascent of spirit in the 
phenomenal world, the male and female functions were 
essential factors in perpetuating the incarnate forms as 
the evolving spirit wended its way up through all forms 
of life's phenomena to that of ape-like man, and thence 
upward still to the Satanic man, half animal and half 
human, waiting for his immortal mind and senses to be 
opened and to function on a higher plane of conscious- 
ness. 

THE LAW. 

The sun may be clouded, yet ever the sun 
Will sweep on its course till the cycle is run. 
And when into chaos the systems are hurled, 
Again shall the Builder reshape a new world. 

Your path may be clouded, uncertain your goal; 
Move on, for the orbit is fixed for your soul. 
And though it may lead into darkness of night, 
The torch of the Builder shall give it new light. 

You were, and you will be; know this while you are. 
Your spirit has traveled both long and afar. 
It came from the Source, to the Source it returns; 
The spark that was lighted, eternally burns. 

It slept in the jewel, it leaped in the wave; 

It roamed in the forest, it rose from the grave; 



Qualities of Incarnate Satanic Man 27 

It took on strange garbs for long eons of years, 
And now in the soul of yourself it appears. 

From body to body your spirit speeds on; 

It seeks a new form when the old one is gone; 

And the form that it finds is the fabric you wrought, 

On the loom of the mind, with the fiber of thought. 

As dew is drawn upward, in rain to descend, 
Your thoughts drift away and in destiny blend. 
You cannot escape them; or petty, or great, 
Or evil, or noble, they fashion your fate. 

Somewhere on some planet, sometime and somehow, 
Your life will reflect all the thoughts of your now. 
The law is unerring ; no blood can atone ; 
The structure you rear you must live in alone. 

From cycle to cycle, through time, and through space, 
Your lives with your longings will ever keep pace. 
And all that you ask for, and all you desire, 
Must come at your bidding, as flames out of fire. 

You are your own devil, you are your own God. 

You fashioned the paths that your footsteps have trod: 

And no one can save you from error or sin, 

Until you shall hark to the spirit within. 

Once list to that voice and all tumult is done, 
Your life is the life of the Infinite One; 
In the hurrying race you are conscious of pause, 
With love for the purpose and love for the cause. 

Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 



CHAPTER III 

THE STUDY OF PSYCHONOMY AND PSYCHOGENY 

About eighty years ago considerable public attention 
was aroused in this country by the phenomenon of an 
incarnate being called man holding communication with an 
excarnate being called spirit, and those who investigated 
the various phases of the psychic phenomena connected 
therewith, and were convinced by the facts presented, 
were called Spiritualists, for want of a better knowledge 
of the law of mental communication between incarnate and 
excarnate beings. A more appropriate name for them 
would have been Psychonomists, a term fitly applied to 
those making a scientific study of the principles of mental 
action between incarnate and excarnate beings. 

The simple fact that one being has a denser armor 
or instrument (such as man's physical body), and an- 
other being a more ethereal one called spirit, is of no 
particular consequence to those who are studying the 
science of mental action between incarnate and excarnate 
beings, or between one unit of mind and another, regard- 
less of the character of the embodiment of the minds in 
communication. 

Study of the law of mental action between beings in 
different states of embodiment in no wise constitutes a 
religion, as some would have us believe, any more than 
it would be called a religion to study the customs and 
laws of the Eskimo tribes or of the inhabitants of the 
Fiji Islands. 

28 



The Study of Psychonomy and Psychogeny 29 

Mind is a unit of consciousness in Nature, and its 
armor or instrument we call spirit. When the spirit in- 
carnates in a corporeal form like the human body, the 
phenomenon is called man, but man is only a manifesta- 
tion existing for a time in a phenomenal environment 
or world. 

Mind, or spirit, is the only creative power in Nature, 
and by desire and thought, in a sequence of many creative 
efforts, it evolves to larger and higher planes of creative 
consciousness. 

The organism or phenomenon called man is composed 
of an aggregation of sentient entities, which are the 
incarnated being's servitors, regulating and sustaining 
the functions of the mortal body. 

All the phenomena of Nature are due to the action 
of mind, or spirit, and psychonomists are students of 
the law of mental action of all living beings manifest- 
ing in the incarnate and the excarnate expressions of 
life. 

Nature has no secrets, nothing hidden; everything is 
objective to those whose spirit senses are well developed 
or unfolded while they are yet in the incarnate mani- 
festation. Every mind unit in the incarnate as well as 
the excarnate expression of life manifests its creative 
desires and hopes, or rather the story of its place in 
Nature. All living beings can tell you their incarnated 
life-story before the psychic entity, or being, is afforded 
an opportunity to incarnate in our phenomenal world. 

If you want joy, grandeur, beauty, and knowledge 
added to your being, then study psychonomy and 
psychogeny. He who becomes acquainted more and 
more fully with his environment becomes acquainted in 
the same increasing measure with the God within and 
without himself. 



30 Man: Whence and Whither? 

Man possesses in his unenlightened state nothing more 
than the five physical senses, which he has in common 
with most other living things that environ him. All 
these creatures perform the functions of incarnate life 
in a manner similar or analogous to that of man. They 
incarnate under the same mental law as man, and also 
excarnate similarly. 

One wrong thought, one wrong idea, can hold a mind 
a prisoner or a vassal for countless years, if that mind 
does not awaken to its error. Who will be so foolish as 
to put limitations on mind? And who but the ignorant 
will imprison it for an indefinite period through error 
or lack of judgment? 

Who ever mastered the science of mathematics except 
by training the mind to follow its laws from the easiest 
to the most difficult problem? You have to master the 
problems of mathematics yourself by thinking; and by 
desire and incessant thinking you open the way to an 
understanding of the science. As Euclid is reported to 
have said to Ptolemy I., there is no royal road to such 
attainment. 

Every branch of learning demands just so much con- 
stant, serious thought before you can master it to the 
degree that it becomes a part of yourself. Unremitting 
effort is required if you would attain oneness with the 
laws of mathematics or with those underlying any other 
problem of life. You have to open your mind to the 
study of psychonomy and psychogeny as you do to the 
study of mathematics. Intense desire to know becomes 
a thought incubator that generates new ideas and creative 
efforts in any being. 

Truth is within ourselves; it takes no rise 
From outward things, whate'er you may believe. 



The Study of Psychonomy and Psychogeny 31 

There is an inmost center in us all, 
Where truth abides in fullness; and around, 
Wall upon wall, the gross flesh hems it in, 
This perfect clear perception — which is truth. 
A baffling and perverting carnal mesh 
Binds it, and makes all error : and to know 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splendor may escape, 
Than in effecting entry for a light 
Supposed to be without. 

— Browning: Paracelsus. 

Sevenfold we weave the measure 

In this dance of Life; 
Sevenfold the bounds of pleasure, 
Sevenfold the pangs we treasure, 

In this deathly strife: 
Coming, going, 
Ebbing, flowing, 
Flotsam, jetsam, never knowing 
On what shore the tide shall toss us, 
Nor the heart-break that shall cross us. 

Clinging to the knife that slays us, 

Seeking still the knout that flays us, 

To the sword forever clinging, 

Hugging close the nettle stinging ; 
Tears and laughter, smiles and frowns, 
Bearing crosses, wearing crowns, 
Falling low while looking high, 
Daily passing Wisdom by, 

Till we find the hidden goal 

Here at home, within our Soul. 

— E. B. P. 

Your mind is your microcosm, and you are the sole 
inhabitant. How intensely are you going to desire know- 



32 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

ledge? How earnestly are you going to think, that you 
may normally unfold the limitless God-given powers in 
your possession? No one can do it for you. You must 
solve the psychophysical mathematical problem yourself. 
When you pay the price the attainment is yours. You 
have within the essence of your mind now all that is 
coming to you in eternity. Realize the wealth, there- 
fore, as fast as you can. With inconceivable, boundless 
creative powers already within his mind, awaiting ex- 
pression, how long — oh, how long — is the spirit of man 
going to be content with the information gained through 
the five physical senses, as are the lower animals that 
environ him? 

Through the long process of integration and disin- 
tegration the mind with its creative powers continued to 
evolve as a result of the urge and push of innate desire 
and thought, and ultimately the archetypal form of spirit 
was unable to manifest itself in a form fashioned in 
the image and after the likeness of God. The long 
incubation of spirit in Nature's Cosmic School finally 
evolved the phenomenon called man. We know some- 
thing about man's history down to the present day, and 
this enables us to realize that he is still a pupil in 
Nature's Cosmic School of construction and destruction, 
but that his spirit is making efforts to emancipate itself. 

Many of the earth's peoples are hoping and patiently 
praying for the coming of a Prophet: a personage with 
enduring ideals for the betterment of mankind and of 
human life; one with a vision as to how to do away 
with the destructive impulses and activities of man; one 
who will give them knowledge regarding the normal un- 
foldment of the godlike power within themselves; one 
who will establish interracial unity in consequence of 
right thinking and nobility of character, thought, and 



The Study of Psychonomy and Psychogeny 33 

action; one who will make plain the laws governing all 
the mental actions of an individual that tend toward 
good. 

The sincere and patient study of psychonomy and 
phychogeny will help to develop the potential creative 
powers of the mind until the incarnate spirit of man 
can command his five immortal avenues of information, 
thus becoming able to view through the spirit senses the 
ovate zones that environ him, while still able, as now, 
to contact the phenomenal world through his mortal, 
or physical, senses. 

You have to master the problems of mathematics, as 
already stated; otherwise the science will not be of 
much service to you. In the same manner you must 
master the problems of mental action step by step, and 
through the process of serious thinking gradually increase 
your powers as you enlarge the bounds of your know- 
ledge and attain correspondingly higher planes of con- 
sciousness. 

Spirit-man must become familiar with the mental 
action between the incarnated instrument and that of 
the immortal mind operating on its mortal replica, or 
personality — namely, the phenomenon called man — and 
must learn how the uncreated mind conveys its sen- 
sations, emotions, and desires normally through its mask 
and thus communicates with its environment. 

But few individuals have acquired the capacity to 
silence the mortal psychical organism and let the real 
self — the immortal ego — function normally through its 
replica and armor. When one realizes this functioning, 
he has discovered his immortal self. He has awakened 
to the call of the God within him. Emerson rightly says : 
"A man passes for what he is worth. What he is, 
engraves itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes, 



34 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

in letters of light which all men may read but himself. 
Concealment avails him nothing. There is confession 
in the glances of our eyes, in our smiles, in salutations, 
and the grasp of hands." 

"All that thou hast thought, 
All that thou hast felt, 
All that thou hast said and done unto others, 
That art thou, and thou art that." 



CHAPTER IV 



The first active desire of a spirit to create marks 
its beginning as a factor and a recipient in an incarnate 
world. At the time when mind, or spirit, began to 
manifest its involved attributes and apply its creative 
power, the phenomenon of incarnation occurred; and 
during the eons spent in labor and thought a planet was 
evolved with numberless types of living things, among 
which man, the latest to be developed, is mentally and 
physically the highest and most complex, being fashioned 
in the image of the archetypal form of spirit. 

In the beginning of the phenomenon of the accretive 
embodiment of spirit, the result was the simplest form 
of creative effort and incarnate existence. However 
simple the embodiment, it possessed needs, wants, and 
desires, and to satisfy them it had to struggle and con- 
tend with its environment, so that labor and thought 
on its part were required for the maintenance of its 
earthly expression. 

Through forced and incessant labor and thought in 
the incarnate and excarnate phases of life in Nature's 
Cosmic School, spirit thus accumulated experience and 
knowledge through the law of the integration and dis- 
integration, or life and death, of its created phenomenon; 
and the continuance of this process, cycle after cycle, 
for vast periods enabled spirits to evolve our phenomenal 
incarnate world. 

35 



36 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

From the beginning to the end of the seven stages in 
the process of the world's formation, during which it 
was being fitted to be a habitation for spirit incarnate 
in the form of man, an immense amount of labor and 
thought had to be expended and much experience and 
knowledge acquired by the spirit before the phenomenon 
called man could be manifested. 

One might think that Nature's Cosmic School was 
very liberal with its educational favors in permitting a 
spirit to take on a form called man and yet allowing it 
to retain all its ancestral animalistic traits and habits 
of mind, such as man exhibits today. Since spirit has 
so recently emerged from the lower conscious planes of 
incarnated beings, spirit-man naturally retains his acquired 
animalistic mind-traits, and mentally he yet resembles all 
the incarnate creatures that environ him and is wholly 
dependent on his five physical senses for information, 
as are all living creatures in the lower mind grades of 
Nature's Cosmic School. 

Spirit-man escapes from the gestative imprisonment 
in his mother's womb to find himself a helpless being 
dependent upon the care and bounty of others. If he 
escapes the many fatal diseases incident to infancy, child- 
hood, and youth, he becomes as a rule an intractable, 
headstrong, unthinking stripling, expressing many or all 
of the animalistic traits of mind; and as physical man- 
hood develops he usually becomes an intellectual tyke — 
neither an animal nor a human being in specific mental 
and physical characteristics. He is yet a prisoner in 
Nature's merciless Cosmic School, and will be forced by 
the innate law of mental action within him to think and 
work normally in order to extricate himself from the 
accumulated debris of his past abnormal creations. 

In this school of creative thought and labor one must 



The Spirit's Need of Physical Endeavor 37 

of necessity choose between right and wrong creative 
efforts, and in that choice lies one's potential creative 
destiny. 

Over the portal of Nature's Cosmic School of 
Psychonomy and Psychogeny are inscribed these words : 

INCARNATE AND EXCARNATE BEINGS MUST CON- 
STANTLY THINK AND LABOR NORMALLY. 

It required many millions of years for a being in 
Nature's Cosmic School of mind, contending constantly 
with countless obstacles and surmounting them by means 
of incessant labor and thought, to unfold the innate 
creative power sufficiently to incarnate in the most 
efficient bodily instrument we call man, who made his 
appearance upon the earth as a savage hundreds of 
thousands of years ago and still exists on the planet in 
great numbers in fulfilment of an evolutionary purpose. 

Through perhaps two or three hundred million years 
spirit has struggled, labored, and thought in contending 
with the phenomena called birth, existence, and death; 
and it has thus acquired the ability to incarnate in a 
replica called man — a great upward step in physical evolu- 
tion made possible by the development gained in the 
struggle necessary to sustain itself in each of its count- 
less incarnate efforts in the past. 

The history of the evolution of the mental attributes 
of the being called man from the first beginnings down 
to the present day is not very complimentary to him, 
and he is yet confined in Nature's cosmic incubator and 
must labor and suffer poverty, sin, sorrow, worry, dis- 
ease, and death — all in consequence of failure to think 
and create normally. Inherent in the mind of man is 
the law governing the mental attributes that must be 
evolved by right thinking and right conduct in Nature's 



38 Man : Whence and Whither ? 

Cosmic School, which relentlessly, without pity or love, 
compels a being to abide by the consequences of its 
mental habits. 

The law of conduct is within the mind, and no one 
but the individual himself can solve the problem or 
work it out. As long as he depends wholly on foreign 
aid, the creative power of the mind remains inactive and 
he becomes a sniveler full of fear and woes, with his 
prayers unanswered. Nature's Cosmic School has no 
love, no mercy, no patience, no ear for supplication, no 
hand extended to save. It demands of its factors and 
recipients continuous working and thinking along the 
normal course of mind unfoldment, which creates happi- 
ness, joy, contentment, and tranquillity of mind, in con- 
sequence of the fact that the individual has found his 
place in the macrocosm and will work, think, and create 
normally in accordance with the dictates of an awakened 
intelligence. 

One should take delight in whatever labor one finds 
to do, and do it honestly, carefully, and in the most 
up-to-date way; for in so doing one develops creative 
ability, which, constantly exercised, will transform the 
animal-minded man into a really noble-minded one who 
loves to work in the most skillful manner, and who in 
so doing is in reality working out his own potential 
destiny and divinity. 

It should be one's aim to do whatever the mind and 
hands find to do in the right way (the best possible 
way), with a consciousness that no one could do it better 
under the circumstances. An individual who has reached 
the stage of consciousness in which he puts his very soul 
(or mind) into everything that he does, necessarily and 
inevitably performs progressive, creative mental work 
and unfolds more and more of the still latent power of 



The Spirit's Need of Physical Endeavor 39 

mind. All that any spiritual being has acquired on its 
long journey of mind evolution has been gained in con- 
sequence of compulsory labor and thought in Nature's 
Cosmic School of creation and destruction, in which the 
mind is taught to create in a better and nobler way. 
On every hand it had to contend with seemingly insur- 
mountable obstacles, and in so doing it acquired increased 
creative powers for self-preservation and greater mental 
alertness and bodily strength. The individual who feels 
no happiness, no joy, and no satisfaction in active thought 
and labor for himself, and more particularly for others, 
has no purpose in existence, but is simply drifting on 
the ocean of mind as an aimless thing, trying to get all 
he can for the least possible return on his part, thus 
cheating himself out of an opportunity to develop the 
innate, potential, creative power within himself. He is 
simply a thief who takes the created product of another 
and at the same time steals from himself the ability to 
produce what he needs and desires. 

We can readily understand why Nature compels spirit- 
man to earn his bread "by the sweat of his brow." The 
effort thus put forth tames the animal nature and tends 
to make man acquire concentration of mind and the 
ability to think intelligently, so that he can gain know- 
ledge and accumulate experience, and thus unfold the 
godlike creative powers of his mind. By constantly and 
normally developing these latent powers, spirit-man gains 
larger use of his five physical senses, so that he is able 
to perceive and comprehend the phenomena of life on 
the excarnate plane of spirit existence as well as obtain 
a more accurate knowledge of the phenomena of his 
incarnate existence and environment. How long will 
unthinking, uncreating, and undeveloped spirit-man be 
content with the limited view of phenomena that his 



40 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

animalistic senses afford him — a range of perception 
that he shares with the swimming, creeping, crawling, 
quadrupedal, and flying creatures that also 'inhabit the 
earth for a presumably good purpose? 

Man now exists in the midst of his own abnormal 
creations, and through his needs, wants, and desires he 
continues to create wrongly ; therefore sin, sorrow, worry, 
poverty, sickness, and death — his own creations — beset 
and afflict him. 

We may, then, formulate three propositions in rela- 
tion to the subject in hand: (i) that the mental con- 
cept of a spirit that has created the phenomenon called 
man is to make a distinction between itself and its 
creation; (2) that the incarnate form is only an accretive, 
protective armor and an instrument through which the 
spirit gains knowledge and experience; and (3) that it 
is essential that the incarnate instrument receive the best 
of care, so that it will be capable of responding to every 
normal demand of the spirit within its created person- 
ality. When this knowledge has been attained, man 
can be said to have found himself and to have become 
initiated into a larger and a holier creative life. 

Nature's universal incubator never intended that the 
brood called man should remain confined in the cosmic 
hatchery. It sends him forth, like a chick from its 
broken shell, into a denser phenomenal world to work 
out his destiny by incessantly thinking and laboring, thus 
preventing mental and bodily stasis, or stagnation, which 
would speedily result in mental autotoxemia of the 
organism and ultimately lead to the extinction of the 
individual man and of whatever degree of civilization 
he might have attained. 

Constant normal labor of mind and body creates self- 
confidence and begets resourcefulness, the instigator of 



The Spirit's Need of Physical Endeavor 41 

new creative thought and energy that knows no failure. 
No kind of labor seems menial to the mind that puts its 
soul into its work. Concentration of mind can be well 
developed while one is engaged in manual labor or other 
tasks, and the faculty so acquired can be exercised fur- 
ther in creative and constructive thought during hours 
of rest and refreshment. The ox, the horse, the elephant, 
and even many men labor with little or no thought; 
hence they show little progressive development of mind. 
Nature exacts normal mental and bodily labor daily, with- 
out hint of a shirk or a quirk, as the price that all man- 
kind must pay for their daily training in preparation 
for their birthright of creative efficiency. 

Like many of the lower animals, most human beings 
today possess many good qualities for the existence of 
which they can give no definite, sensible reason. If they 
could be made acquainted with the natural law of mind 
action and its means of unfoldment, they would gladly 
embrace the opportunity that such knowledge affords. 
They are hungry and thirsty, mentally starving for lack 
of knowledge of the innate law of their being; but as 
long as the blind continue to lead the blind, mankind will 
cry aloud for a savior, now as in ages past, to lead 
them out of their present bedlam into freedom, and to 
show them how to change the moral and religious fabric 
of the social order and "remake this sorry scheme of 
things entire." 

There must be — nay, there is — a way out of the moral, 
religious, and social disorders of the world that try and 
vex the spirit of our race. It will be found when man 
arrives at a proper understanding of the whence, why, 
and whither of his being. Then he will know and 
realize the joy of creative thought, and labor to unfold 
his godlike potentialities; and when that is attained the 



42 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

dawn of the millennium will shed its benign radiance 
over a transfigured and ennobled humanity. 

We may fittingly conclude the present chapter with the 
following splendid words of James Allen : 

"You will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your 
heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you 
will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, must 
love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your 
own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no 
more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, 
you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, 
your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling 
desire; as great as your dominant aspiration." 



CHAPTER V 

UNFOLDMENT AND ENVIRONMENT 

Within the mind of spirit-man there should arise 
higher and nobler needs, wants, and desires for things 
that have not yet been attained, but are attainable through 
the mind's continuous creative efforts. For those who 
will give attention to what the spirit-mind sends forth 
in the way of promptings and mental impulses, and will 
heed them, entertain them, and energize them by con- 
stant attention and thinking and doing, the five mortal 
senses will respond to the creative demand of the spirit- 
mind of the individual. 

Without fail, demonstration and realization must fol- 
low the demands of a dominant mind, and what was 
unrecognized by the physical senses will become recog- 
nizable through them. If one really and truly desires 
to see, feel, hear, and know more about the phenomena 
of the incarnate and excarnate planes of the world that 
environs him, and if he will exert his creative powers 
through constructive thought and conduct, then larger 
powers of perception and more extended use of his 
physical senses will be attained and the individual will 
be enabled to cognize the phenomena of incarnate and 
excarnate life that environ him, as well as those on 
other planes of existence. 

A being in the incarnate or excarnate state of mani- 
festation, when he becomes capable of seeing psychically 
the phenomena of Nature and understanding them, is 

43 



44 Man: Whence and Whither? 

better able to arrive at accurate knowledge regarding 
the phenomenon called man and his environment. 

Spirit-man's animalistic senses and the various organs 
of his body are of no greater use to him than his mind 
demands. The mind of a spirit created its incarnate 
organs, or body, and that which it created it can trans- 
form through continued training into a state of greater 
usefulness. It is this principle that renders progressive 
development possible. 

When spirit-man, whether incarnate or excarnate, 
ceases to think earnestly and to labor to know more, 
retrogression of the mental powers takes place, accom- 
panied by a return to savage existence. Or if he becomes 
embalmed mentally with self-satisfaction at what he 
already knows, he becomes stunted and remains a medi- 
ocre unit in the macrocosm until some mental cataclysm 
overtakes him. The potential creative power of his mind 
remains dormant and unprogressive, and he becomes 
mentally torpid, like the domestic and wild creatures that 
environ him. If one is going to get anywhere, the 
mental urge and push must be incessant; otherwise stag- 
nation and disintegration will take place. 

As a rule, the incarnate spirit called man remains a 
headstrong, thoughtless, abnormal creature in the kinder- 
garten of Nature's Cosmic School until twenty or more 
years have passed, whereupon his tendency is to assume 
the animal habits and customs of his thoughtless ances- 
tors, as do all incarnate living things that are his earthly 
companions and have a language of their own that man 
knows not. The spirit of the man who is not yet 
awakened to his limitless creative powers of mind is 
still functioning on the animal mind plane. He has eyes, 
yet sees not; he has ears, yet hears not — simply because 
the mind has not gained adequate command over the 



Unfoldment and Environment 45 

organs of perception, his five physical senses, so that 
they are practically useless to him as a means of obtain- 
ing further information regarding his environment. 

The mind of a spirit-being, whether in the incarnate 
or the excarnate state, functioning on the animal plane 
with its limited physical senses, cannot for a moment 
perceive or comprehend that the individual exists within 
the body of a planet, rather than on its outer surface. 
That which his limited spirit-mind, through the five 
senses that are atrophied from lack of use, conceives to 
be empty space is in reality the interior of a planet filled 
with elements and living things presenting phenomena 
similar to those on the mundane plane of existence, but 
in a more ethereal expression and manifestation of spirit. 

Spirit is a psychophysical organism (and so is spirit 
when incarnate in the form called man), and it requires 
a psychophysical environment not greatly unlike that of 
those who incarnate in a denser state and are known as 
man. If man's mind is sufficiently developed psychically, 
he is able to observe through his bodily senses the phe- 
nomena of spirit and its environment in the ovate zone 
that envelops all living things on our plane of action. 
That which the undeveloped spirit-mind and its mortal 
senses perceive as solid earth has capsules, planes, or 
zones, which constitute Nature's incubators for the devel- 
opment of spirit and the unfolding of its latent powers. 

Nature is a graded cosmic school for the unfolding 
of the innate law and creative power of mind. The earth 
and its ovate capsules, planes, or zones are only so many 
varied and adaptable mind incubators that will eventually 
hatch out, let us hope, a spirit-mind that can incarnate 
as man, not only in the image but also in the mental 
likeness of God. A being who has learned that normal 
mind-creation, by means of a continuous sequence of 



46 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

thoughts and acts, is a necessity if development is to 
continue, has found the way of life in his own organism. 

The earth and its ovate zones, or incubators, are so 
joined, interwoven, and blended that the incarnate and 
excarnate beings on the excursion of life always find, 
in each successive state, an environment appropriate to 
their stage of mind unfoldment. What is called space 
is much like what is called solid, in the sight of a person 
who possesses enough psychic development to perceive 
that there are not two extremes — solids and empty space 
— in the phenomena of the earth, although they may be 
so conceived by the undeveloped mind of either an in- 
carnate or an excarnate being. 

The difference between these two supposed extremes 
lies only in the degree of density corresponding to the 
development of the inhabitants, their environment being 
densest at the central core and becoming progressively 
more ethereal as the outer capsules, planes, or zones of 
manifestation are attained. From the center of the earth 
to its outermost regions, or zones, there is one con- 
tinuous gradation of habitable regions, with all the 
psychophysical conditions essential to the various degrees 
of evolved mind and to the needs of a being that is 
mentally coming to be more and more nearly in the like- 
ness of God. 

On the mundane plane of denser world-stuff a spirit- 
being incarnates and is called man. Deep down at the 
innermost region of the ovate zones he exists as an 
undeveloped cosmic being whose primitive mind and 
physical senses barely afford him means of providing for 
his bodily necessities, as he moves about in so-called 
empty space, nearly as ignorant as the less evolved crea- 
tures, which are busy with their affairs of life like their 
fellow-creature, man. 



Unfoldment and Environment 47 

Those who by thought and act have evolved and con- 
tinue to evolve the limitless, innate, creative power of 
their minds are able to observe the phenomena that exist 
and take place in what is called space, and can see its 
inhabitants and communicate with them, as well as 
observe their psychophysical environment of land, water, 
forests, vegetation, birds, animals, and the like, quite 
similar to the so-called mundane plane inhabited by the 
primitive being called man. Nature does not thrust its 
dependents from its Cosmic School, or incubator, into 
empty space or into an incompatible environment, but 
gradually transfers them, as their individual unfoldment 
renders it possible and advisable, from one mind-incu- 
bator department, or conscious plane, to another, to which 
all their good mental belongings carried over from the 
past, as well as all that has been loved and remembered, 
may be brought along if so desired. All progress waits 
on normal desire, and requires the will and determina- 
tion to act without ceasing; the lack of these means 
retrogression and a return to savagery. 

We have discovered that so-called space and solids 
are not so dissimilar as our animalistic mind and senses 
report to us. There is really no division into space and 
solids, but rather one mass or aggregation of psycho- 
physical world-material that is capable of instantly re- 
sponding to every action of mind. By way of illustra- 
tion, I shall liken what is known as space and solids to 
a world of more or less dense smoke-cumuli, filled with 
a fog or haze of fluffy, flocculent sentient things or sub- 
stances extending in every direction, which offer no 
obstruction to the sight or to the passage of excarnate 
beings, and yet afford an environment that is more or 
less a counterpart of the environment that the incarnate 
and excarnate spirits possess on the so-called mundane 



48 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

plane of the great Cosmic School. (The reader should 
bear in mind that all is mind, or spirit, and that it is 
only a question of a little greater or less density of 
aggregation of the sentient units that differentiates the 
various graded capsules, planes, or zones that constitute 
our planet.) 

Involved in the essence of mind are the law and the 
creative power, and what is involved naturally requires 
long and tedious mental processes, accompanied with 
error, for its evolution and complete expression. Inte- 
gration and disintegration, or life and death, are only the 
phenomena attending the creative law of mental pro- 
gress toward the goal where the being becomes a law 
unto itself and dominates its environment, being thus 
enabled to evolve still further the limitless potentiality of 
mind. 

The innate law of the mind and its creative power 
make its possessor responsible for the right or wrong 
creative use of it. The mass of flocculent cumuli of 
constructive spirit-material readily makes manifest objec- 
tively, and thus depicts minutely, the mind's creations of 
both uttered and unuttered thought. Every element in 
Nature and the mind-action of every living thing are 
manifested objectively in the sentient plastic mass of 
world-stuff that can be seen and handled. The little unit 
of mind encased in a pink seed thus tells its story before 
it has an opportunity to incarnate in a denser form (by 
producing its stem, branches, leaves, and flowers) to 
please the undeveloped mind and senses of the less 
advanced children of Nature, thus doing its mite in 
helping to fill so-called space. Likewise every living thing, 
however tiny or large, tells its mind-story in its own 
manner; hence there is no space so empty and no solid 
so dense that it cannot reveal its place and function in 



Unfoldment and Environment 49 

Nature and yet afford no obstruction to sight or to 
excarnate moving things. 

Life is beautiful, grand, glorious, and full of joy to 
those who comprehend the purpose of Nature's Cosmic 
School, which exists primarily for the purpose of unfold- 
ing the godlike attributes of the mind of the spirit being 
incarnated in a replica called man. 



CHAPTER VI 

DEVELOPMENT OF THE IMMORTAL SENSES 

On the mundane plane of existence the armor and 
instrument, or the replica, of an incarnated spirit in its 
archetypal form is called man, and, in common with 
most living things in the earth, on the land, in the 
waters of the earth, and in the air, he is endowed with 
physical senses. 

Nature forces spirit-man to struggle for existence with 
the elements that environ him, and also to labor to 
obtain his material necessities and to provide for the 
care of his offspring. In like manner Nature impels the 
insects, the ox, the horse, and all other forms of incarnate 
life that dwell upon our planet. 

Man beholds the phenomena of life and death, and so 
do all the incarnate beings that are below him in degree 
of unfoldment of mental attributes. He does not know 
the cause or the purpose of the phenomena of life and 
death; neither does the fowl, the calf, or the pig he 
rears to kill. 

Every living thing that swims, flies, creeps, crawls, 
or walks on all fours is instinctively afraid of man. Man 
is still so content with the information obtained through 
his animalistic senses that he, not the lion, deserves to 
be called the king of beasts. He is the arch-destroyer 
of his own species. 

Like the quadrupeds and other incarnate creatures, 
man is physically and mentally very lazy and does not 

50 



Development of the Immortal Senses 51 

care to think; hence Nature has taken good care not to 
coddle him in the lap of plenty, but has forced him 
laboriously to seek food, water, clothing, and shelter, to 
contend with numerous diseases as well as with the 
destructive action of the elements, and to live in terror 
of his fellow-men and of ferocious animals. 

In every conceivable form and manner Nature has 
placed obstacles in man's path and provided destructive 
forces for spirit-man to struggle with, thus calling forth 
the creative thought latent within his mind. The history 
of the civilization of man and of the evolution of his 
mind from the earliest beginnings down to the present 
time is a continuous record of his struggles, losses, and 
gains — all for the purpose of compelling him to think 
more and to labor harder to prevent horrible catastrophes 
(such as the recent World War) — catastrophes that are 
due entirely to the animalistic mind and senses that still 
dominate spirit-man. 

Spirit-man, like all other incarnated creatures that 
inhabit the land, the water, and the air, observes and 
comprehends but little of the earth's phenomena. He, 
like the other creatures of our plane, feels heat and cold 
and the moving air, observes the rain and the lightning- 
flash, and beholds the "solid wrinkled earth" and the 
canopy of heaven that covers him like a bowl, under 
which he moves about at will; but here his powers of 
observation seemingly come to an end. 

Spirit-man must be made aware of the present limita- 
tions of his mind and of his five physical senses. The 
five mortal senses of spirit-man will not and cannot 
report to the mind what the mind does not want or is 
totally ignorant of. They are merely servants of the 
mind, which they supply with no more information than 
it demands or desires to obtain. 



52 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

Involved in the mind of a being garbed in the replica 
called man are limitless possibilities, whether he be in 
an incarnate or excarnate state of existence. A being 
incarnated as man should not be content with the char- 
acteristics of his animal consciousness and with similar 
avenues of information regarding his environment. Ants, 
roaches, and bees have no more use of their senses than 
their minds will permit; neither can spirit-man have any 
more use of his sense-avenues of information than the 
degree of unfoldment of his mind makes possible. 

The five physical senses are only instruments of the 
mind, like the arms, legs, wings, and vital organs of all 
incarnate and excarnate creatures that participate in the 
phenomena of Nature. By unfolding his mind through 
constant desire and consecutive thinking, spirit-man will 
gain higher and higher planes of consciousness through 
the response of his avenues of information to the demands 
of his mind — similar to the response of other organs of 
his body under the process of long training. Spirit-man's 
mind, through its constant and intense desire to know 
and to understand, does not evolve additional senses, but 
simply makes better, or higher, normal use of the five 
senses he already possesses. 

The past history of man and his present sad condition 
physically and mentally cause him to long, hope, and 
pray for something better. He has mentally wandered 
far afield, feeding his mind on husks in the land of 
Mammon and thus retaining all his animal attributes. 
He lives in a spiritual land of boundless plenty and 
knows it not; but now the people of the earth are yearn- 
ing for some one to show them the way out of the plane 
of Mammon's consciousness into that of the Brother- 
hood of Man and the Fatherhood of God. 

Spirit-man has dug and bored into the bowels of the 



Development of the Immortal Senses 53 

earth and searched the depths of the ocean to find wealth, 
happiness, joy, and peace of mind, all the time waging 
fierce mental and physical combats with his fellow-beings, 
thus playing the part of an untrained and boisterous 
pupil in Nature's Cosmic School until he can become a 
law unto himself. 

In the course of long periods of time, the spirit of 
man finds itself on the mundane plane for a compara- 
tively short while for the purpose of developing and un- 
folding the limitless innate creative power and lav/ of 
his mind, thereby learning in a normal way in Na- 
ture's Cosmic School to become more and more in unity 
with his inner divine self, his fellow-man, and his en- 
vironment. 

Spirit-man need not hope, pray, or wait for some 
one to force happiness, joy, and peace of mind upon him, 
for the desired result cannot come in that way. All that 
spirit-man desires is inherent in his own mind, but it 
must be cultivated and unfolded by normal thinking and 
conduct. No one can inject the blessings we have 
enumerated into the mind of a lion, a tiger, or an ele- 
phant, or, as already stated, even into spirit-man, as long 
as he remains in his animal consciousness. 

There is nothing in the earth, or upon it, or in the 
heavens above, that mind has not created or evolved, 
and the phenomena merely wait for a mind prepared to 
receive them. What your mind is prepared to receive 
you have already acquired. Do not retain and hoard 
that which your mind has obtained, but release it like 
water flowing from a spring, and forge on in your 
mind's excursion for newer, better, and richer discover- 
ies, that you may thereby enlarge your mental domain. 
One desire should be paramount in your mind, and 
should direct all its acquirements; namely, the desire to 



54 Man: Whence and Whither? 

obtain knowledge and wisdom that you may know God, 
yourself, your fellow-man, and all living things, incarnate 
or excarnate, in Nature. 

Spirit incarnated in the personality or instrument called 
man should as speedily as possible acquire the ability to 
use its mask normally, and, as it were, double the func- 
tions of its five physical senses and become able to per- 
ceive the phenomena of excarnate life as well as those 
of incarnate existence. The five mortal senses can- 
not convey a whit more to the mind than it is able to 
conceive or desires to know. 

The mind of spirit-man constantly requires new and 
fresh thought-soil from which to take mental food for 
further growth or unfoldment. Spirit incarnated in a 
vegetable form is wholly dependent on the soil and the 
other elements of its environment for continued growth. 
Spirit-man is a vegetable organism that is capable of 
finding new mental soil or environment if prompted by 
desire. If not pushed by desire and an urge to know 
more, the mind becomes a prisoner in the permanent 
mental soil of self-satisfaction and ceases to evolve its 
creative possibilities in accordance with the principles 
inherent in its being. 

The mind of spirit-man should avoid becoming pris- 
oner to a dominant idea. This condition is usually 
brought about as a result of spirit-man's uniting in a 
cause for the sake of effectiveness, this developing into 
self-protectiveness and then petrifying into obstructive- 
ness to the mental progress of mankind. For political 
and religious liberty the mind of spirit-man has been in 
a constant struggle from the dawn of his existence on 
earth down to the present time. 

Over the portals of all our educational institutions 
should be inscribed the following maxim : 



Development of the Immortal Senses 55 

HINDER NONE AND HELP ALL. 

Mankind is greatly in need of teachers and schools 
devoted to the subject of Psychonomy, that it may learn 
the principles of the law of mental action between in- 
carnate and excarnate beings and also the power of 
thought over environment. Spirit-man must learn how 
to silence his physical instrument, so that, after many 
efforts repeated over a long period of time, the immortal 
mind may command to the fullest extent the normal 
use of that instrument and its organs. When the mind 
of a spirit in the incarnate or excarnate state of existence 
awakens to its innate creative power, the words cannot, 
impossible, and doubt will vanish from its lexicon and 
cease to confine it within narrow bounds. A person may 
be unconscious of the possession of one or more phases 
of psychic power, or even when conscious of it may 
neglect to unfold his latent ability and thus retard devel- 
opment of the mind indefinitely. 

Is It Worth While 

for a spirit in its incarnate form to acquire the ability 
to communicate with an excarnate spirit; to hear words 
of love, advice, and admonition; to feel the touch of 
the dear ones who have laid aside the mortal body and 
to know they are near; to know (rather than to have 
faith or even to doubt) that life is continuous; to know 
that life has a real and noble purpose and is worth living; 
to realize that excarnate spirits know your every thought ; 
to realize that they visit, dine, and hold receptions in 
your home; to see your home filled with beautiful plants, 
trees, and flowers and smell their varied perfumes; to 
see spirits traveling through so-called space on horse- 
back, in wheeled vehicles, or in ships; to see spirits, far 
above the clouds, plunging through so-called space carry- 



56 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

ing an American flag on a pole and clearly displaying 
all its colors; to see ethereal vehicles beautifully illumi- 
nated as though by the scintillation of diamonds; to see 
ethereal forms with indescribable brilliants here and there 
on their bodies illuminating vast areas; to visualize the 
realms of the gods and goddesses who have graduated 
from the Cosmic School; to see spirits descend and 
reascend into the heavens on balconies held together by 
strong ropes; to see the manifestation of printed pages, 
as of a book or newspaper, and to realize the astounding 
degree of mental concentration required to hold the 
words and lines so very accurate and so clearly percepti- 
ble; to observe the beginning and completion of a world; 
to see the inhabitants of the interior of this planet; to 
read the life-story of a seed, nut, root, stem, or egg 
before its ultimate manifestation in denser material 
form; to see the sentient mind units, or spirits, that con- 
stitute the phenomenal world; to know that what we 
call space is filled with living things; to know you are 
enveloped by and press your way through dense, sentient 
world-stuff making living, objective things out of every 
thought you think; to know that there are no secrets in 
Nature ; to know that you are both a factor and a recip- 
ient in the phenomenal world in which you exist; to 
know that inherent in the mind of each human factor 
and recipient is the law of normal creation, unity of 
purpose, and mutual helpfulness that will eventually 
evolve a being possessing godlike attributes; to realize 
that this law must continue to unfold divine beings on 
both the mundane and supermundane cosmic planes; to 
know that Nature's unity of purpose will develop the 
minds of beings, in whatever state of existence they 
may be, until they become one with good, or God, in 
all their future creative efforts; to find your place and 



Development of the Immortal Senses 57 

purpose in the macrocosm; to eliminate all fear through 
knowledge; to realize the divine purpose of man in 
Nature; to know you can evolve by thought and will 
to a comprehension of a God-power within yourself; 
to know that the creative power of your mind is limit- 
less, if you will constantly use it in a normal way; to 
know that you live in the midst of boundless plenty that 
is yours if you will accept it; and, finally, to realize that 
the spirit of man need not be a prisoner in a mortal 
body? 

Is all this worth while? 

It is worth while to take part in an excursion in the 
Macrocosm — when you know how to equip your soul 
to dominate all that environs it and be a law unto itself, 
full of a tranquillity founded upon the certitude that 
there is nothing but good in the universe. 

The stranger at my fireside cannot see 

The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear; 

He but perceives what is; while unto me 
All that has been is visible and clear. 

The spirit-world around this world of sense 
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere 

Wafts thro' these earthly mists and vapors dense 
A vital breath of more ethereal air. 

So from the world of spirits there descends 
A bridge of light, connecting it with this, 

O'er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends, 
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss. 

— Longfellow. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE PHENOMENA OF THOUGHT 

With the conscious psychodynamic upward reach of 
a spirit-being from a lower conscious plane of existence 
to a higher, and the benefic aid of spirit-beings of a 
higher plane yet to be attained by him, spirit-man now 
finds himself on this phenomenal plane where all the 
living things wear masks, as he does. 

By what means can the spirit animating all objective 
living things in Nature take on the mask of personality, 
as observed by spirit-man's incarnate senses? This is 
not so difficult to conceive when we realize that there is 
but one archetypal form and essence in Nature — mind, 
or spirit — and that each psychic unit manifests in its 
own particular type, way, and manner. 

Psychic units, monads, or entities constitute all the 
elements in Nature and help to present to the incarnate 
senses of spirit-man the varied phenomena of Nature, 
or as much thereof as they are able to recognize. Study 
of the numerous phenomena of spirit enables us to per- 
ceive how each species perpetuates its kind in accordance 
with psychic, accretive law during gestation and after 
birth, until the mask, or personality, of the dominant 
spirit is completed by the psychic units constituting the 
embodying and sustaining planetary aids to spirit-being. 
The phenomena of Nature observed by spirit-man are 
but an aggregation of spirit entities answering the desire 
of the spirit — the creator of each particular manifesta- 

58 



The Phenomena of Thought 59 

tion in Nature. Thus by thought or desire spirit-being 
becomes incarnated in an armor and instrument made 
without hands, and through desire the union of the sen- 
tient incarnate mask with spirit is sustained. Thoughts 
also are made to incarnate objectively as long as they 
are energized by spirit. 

A spirit-being is the father of its incarnate personality 
(the son), and the father (spirit) speaking through the 
son is the creative word. Hence, knowing that the spirit 
is a creator, we feel the sacredness of each being, and 
the duty of normal creative thinking becomes an impera- 
tive obligation at all times. He who wrongly directs 
the creation of a spirit-being into error sins against the 
father, the son, and the word. The spirit, being the 
father of the word, knoweth all his thought-creations, 
which become the creator's companions in all their in- 
carnate details — to the creator's joy or sorrow, as the 
case may be. 

Spirit-being is not so incomprehensible to the immortal 
senses of spirit-man as many are led to conclude from 
information furnished by the incarnate senses. These 
serve their purpose for spirit-man in a limited way until 
he has attained full control over his physical armor and 
instrument, at which time the spirit senses should come 
to his aid on life's ascending way. 

Spirit-man, like all the varied living things below 
him, could not exist without the five physical senses, 
for many good reasons; consequently he possesses such 
in common with the ants and the roaches. Spirit-man, 
like less highly endowed creatures, is thoroughly con- 
tent with his five limited incarnate senses, and therefore 
makes no effort toward larger attainment by the unfold- 
ment of the immortal spirit senses. Contentment shuts 
out creative desire and arrests development of the mind 



60 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

for further creative thought and manifestation of spirit- 
ual being. 

Our study of the spirit and its phenomena in Nature 
resolves itself into a better understanding of spirit-man 
and his word made manifest in the past and to be mani- 
fested in the future. The study of spirit and its created 
phenomena is simple and easy to one whose spirit per- 
ception is clear and whose mind is unfettered by the 
present status or the past history of incarnate spirit on 
this phenomenal plane of expression. 

Aside from the more dominant spirit-beings that by 
their creative word call into existence many of the phe- 
nomena of Nature, there are countless spirit servitors, or 
nature-spirits, that obey and make incarnate the spoken 
word of a spirit-being or a dominant spirit on conscious 
planes below that of spirit-man. They are psychic nature 
units that answer every desire or call to construct or 
bring to completion energized thoughts or words and 
thus make the word objectively manifest in this phe- 
nomenal world. 

Spoken language is not an essential means of com- 
munication between incarnate beings, nor between ex- 
carnate beings when the spirit senses are sufficiently 
developed to see the materialized creation of unuttered 
ideas or words, which become living, manifesting, objec- 
tive materializations in all their details, and serve to 
convey thought far better than articulated words. Spirit- 
man's physical senses can even discern the silent or 
unuttered creations of a mind in the incarnate bodies 
of his fellow-beings, and even in the creatures on his 
own mind-plane of manifestation. This is readily accom- 
plished by the ever-ready response of the sentient nature- 
spirits who construct and objectify the creations of mind 
or spirit on the numerous planes of spirit activity. These 



The Phenomena of Thought 61 

sentient nature-units integrate forms as observed in the 
phenomena on the earth and on the ovate plane, as the 
psychodynamic creative power calls them into aggregated 
existence and energizes the creation. But when the mind- 
force is withdrawn from the materialized creation, dis- 
integration of the sentient builders takes place and the 
creation ceases to manifest. The spirit-being that called 
the man- form into existence by its word does not die, 
nor do the sentient form-builders that answered the call 
and made up the incarnate body. Thus the word becomes 
flesh, and its withdrawal from the created form is called 
death. Therefore all the phenomena produced by spirit 
in Nature are for more or less temporary use, being dis- 
carded as the being unfolds larger and larger creative 
powers. This idea has been beautifully expressed in a 
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes entitled "The Chambered 
Nautilus." 

Thought creations of spirit-man may be normal or 
abnormal, possessing all the varied grades of force and 
activity, as well as the power of endurance for good or 
for evil on the conscious plane where they are created 
and energized. Spirit is the creator of its own peculiar 
environment, and through thought creates all the living 
things that inhabit its incarnate world. The Great 
Teacher said: "If you see me [the incarnation], you 
see the Father also; I and my Father are one." The 
Father, the Son, and the Word are one — a trinity that 
produces all the phenomena in Nature, in which every 
spirit-being is a factor and a recipient. Hence the oft- 
repeated saying: "God is in everything, and God is a 
Spirit." There is nothing in Nature but spirit and its 
created phenomena, or "the Word made manifest." 

The Father (spirit), through the word, is made incar- 
nate by the aid of sentient entities (units of mind, or 



62 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

spirit), which constitute the integral parts of all the 
elements in Nature, forming a measureless ovate globe, 
compactly filled with sentient world-material that can 
be called upon to produce all the phenomena of Nature 
observed by spirit-man's physical as well as spirit senses. 

Spirit-beings pass with ease through substances that 
the physical senses recognize as solids; and similarly 
incarnate man passes through a dense mass of living 
things which constitute Nature's workshop materials for 
the use of spirit on the various planes of expression 
above that of the sentient world-stuff that enters into all 
the phenomena of Nature through the power of the cre- 
ative word. Therefore incarnate and excarnate spirit- 
beings exist in a more or less dense ovate ocean of spirit- 
entities, which constitute Nature's building-materials that 
respond to and manifest a want, desire, or word on a 
denser phenomenal plane. 

It is simply a matter of spirit on one plane of con- 
sciousness responding to that on a higher plane when 
the creative word is put forth by a dominant spirit to 
incarnate, be it the smallest unit or the greatest mani- 
festation of life in Nature. 

These sentient world-stuff builders not only constitute 
the incarnate form, or mask, but sustain all its functions 
of life and make possible the intercommunion of spirit 
on the various conscious planes of existence. These 
psychic servitors are essential for the intercommunion of 
incarnate and excarnate beings by thought only, or by 
the spoken word, as necessity or convenience may suggest. 
These sentient units perform a twofold function, that of 
materializing thoughts or words and that of conveying 
sound; hence the two means of spirit intercommunion. 
The seeing of the materialized thought-forms is a very 
complete means of intercommunion, as all the details of 



The Phenomena of Thought 63 

the subject are thus more minutely expressed than by 
sound and words, as in spoken language, which is greatly 
limited in its power of conveying what the mind desires 
to express. The mind can hold no secrets, even if no 
words are uttered, since every intellectual impulse is a 
creation made objective at once by the psychic recorders 
of mental action. Hence the saying: "God knows your 
every thought." Life is continuous self-expression, 
which is self-revelation. 

Nature's sentient builders are not all individualized 
or restricted psychic units by any means, as they, too, 
incarnate in forms of all grades and are thus able to 
do their bit in serving the spirit, the word, and the son, 
and in producing the phenomena essential to the creator's 
manifesting power on the various conscious planes of 
expression. All species of life present their psychic 
phenomena on the ovate psychic plane, and, when con- 
ditions are afforded for incarnating on the earth plane, 
their phenomena become denser and find corresponding 
physical expression, so that they, too, may tell their story 
to the mortal senses of spirit-man. How interesting it 
is that the seemingly voiceless seeds, nuts, roots, eggs, 
and the like, can reveal their latent creative ability at all 
times, while awaiting the opportunity to incarnate on the 
earth plane of manifestation to please and entertain the 
physical senses of spirit-man! The various metallic and 
other substances tell their psychic story also, in the 
phenomenal world, to be recognized and appreciated by 
those whose powers of perception are sufficiently 
developed. 

The phenomena of a thought can likewise be seen and 
handled, and, if the object thought of is far away, the 
thought phenomena can be traced from their mental 
source through the intermediate substance to the distant 



64 Man: Whence and Whither? 

object and its environment. It is not difficult, for 
instance, for an excarnate being to express its apprecia- 
tion of courtesies received from an incarnate being by 
presenting the latter with flowers, and the incarnate 
being can return the compliment by presenting the 
excarnate friend with beautiful plants and shrubs, thus 
exchanging the graceful civilities so highly valued by 
mutual friends. An incarnate psychic entity encased in 
a seed mutely and beautifully tells its story of stem, 
leaf, and flower to an incarnate being who can see its 
ethereal created phenomena, and it can thus prefigure, 
before it comes to be more densely incarnated on the 
earth plane, what the nature of its manifestation will be. 

Every theme of intercourse between spirits, whether 
incarnate or excarnate, by means of thought only or the 
use of speech, becomes materialized* and thus made 
objective. If the tearing down of a building is planned, 
the whole course of its destruction by the wreckers 
becomes a visible reality; or if it is the erection of a 
building, the entire process is made objective, as though 
the psychic observer were standing across the street and 
actually witnessing the work of construction. If an 
incarnate or excarnate being has in mind some beautiful 
scenery, it is made manifest objectively in all its minute 
details to one who can see materialized thought phe- 
nomena. 

Instrumental music that expresses human thoughts and 
emotions is thus materialized, showing what the com- 
poser desired to depict. Military music presents a won- 
derful materialized phenomenon of an army marching 
and of battle scenes. If a person possesses a strong, 
steady mind, accompanied with adequate creative force, 

* It is understood that the word materialised, as here used, means 
"made manifest or visible to the psychic sense of the observer." 



The Phenomena of Thought 65 

the object that is thought of should be materialized to 
the extent of being seen even by the mortal senses of 
spirit-man. All our cosmic phenomena, therefore, are 
"the word made manifest," uttered by its factors and 
recipients, who are incarnate and excarnate beings. 

When spirit-man can see the mind-creations that are 
incarnated in his physical body, the dawn of the judg- 
ment day is at hand, and the Book of Life, hitherto 
sealed as with seven seals, is at last opened for him to 
read. 

Much earnest thinking expresses an honest discontent 
with ignorance. Introspective thinking helps the mind 
to take an inventory of the extremely valuable thought- 
creations on hand. It will keep an individual so busy 
adjusting and evaluating the good and bad creations 
of his own past and present that there will be no time 
to do it for others. The lack of useful introspection 
results in theophobia, and the mind-creations (if ever 
there were any) then cease, while the individual awaits 
the long-desired help. Much thinking, especially of an 
introspective nature, for good creative purposes awakens 
the deity within the spirit, and at its birth the spirit 
becomes a living soul. 

"Sow a thought and reap an action; 
Sow an action and reap a habit ; 
Sow a habit and reap a character; 
Sow a character and reap a destiny/ ' 



CHAPTER VIII 

IDENTIFICATION OF EXCARNATE BEINGS 

In court proceedings great stress is laid upon the 
proper identification of a person accused of crime, and 
this often presents great difficulties for the witnesses. 

It is frequently impossible for spirit-man to identify 
one or both of his parents while they are still incarnate 
and wearing the mortal mask, or even to know who 
they were. Very often an individual fails to identify a 
fellow man whom he has not seen for twenty or thirty 
years. One or two incidents mentioned by an alleged 
old acquaintance are at once accepted as conclusive, as 
the matter is of no special interest or consequence in 
most cases. Since the most important feature of such 
a meeting is how agreeable it is and what information 
is gained, positive and unmistakable identification is 
generally dispensed with. 

In meeting and communicating with excarnate spirits 
that inhabit the ovate zone of the earth that environs 
us, we consider, similarly, whether our precious time 
has been wasted or has been profitably spent in quest 
of the information and knowledge so greatly needed 
and desired. 

Those engaged in psychical research attach great 
importance to and lay great stress upon the identity of 
the excarnate spirit with whom they are in communica- 
tion. They waste much precious time by their mental, 

66 



Identification of Excarnate Beings 67 

quizzical, critical, egotistical, doubting, and often ignorant 
manner of communicating with an intelligent being, who 
is presumptively worthy of being treated in an interview 
with the same courtesy and consideration that would be 
shown to a fellow-being still incarnate. 

Usually the most ardent and self-assertive psychical 
researcher is one who is largely or entirely destitute of 
psychic unfoldment himself (though often full of spirit 
ferment), and who is therefore unable to realize the true 
nature of psychic phenomena and to perceive the clean 
and wholesome side of psychic intercommuncation. But 
we must always bear in mind what has been well expressed 
by Bulwer: "Truth can no more be seen by the mind 
unprepared than the sun can rise in the midst of night." 
Emerson voices the same thought: "God screens us 
evermore from premature ideas. Our eyes are holden, 
that we may not see." And there is an Arabian proverb 
that runs as follows : "He who knows not, and knows 
not that he knows not, is a fool: avoid him. He who 
knows not, and knows that he knows not, is untaught: 
teach him. But he who knows, and knows that he 
knows, is a wise man: follow him." 

An intelligent excarnate spirit worth communicating 
with knows the individual spirit-man's every thought, 
uttered or unuttered. When an incarnate being, in an 
arbitrary and cunning manner, presumes to "test" an 
excarnate spirit by deceit, dissimulation, or the use of 
false names, he deserves to get misleading and nonsensical 
replies; and he usually does get them, to his great aston- 
ishment. He is ordinarily too obtuse to realize that he 
has received a severe and merited rebuke. Such a self- 
constituted psychical researcher, so full of conscious 
deception, would not elicit an intelligent and straight- 
forward response from even an incarnate fellow-being 



68 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

who had discovered his nature before the conversation 
began. 

A few spirit-men are aware that not all of their 
fellow-men are fools, and likewise not all of the excar ■ 
nate spirits that environ man in countless numbers. "He 
who waits until all things are proved will have experience 
only to reward his patience." 

What a spirit-man thinks, he will surely draw to him 
through the immutable natural law of cause and effect. 
The would-be saviors of man admonish him with great 
vehemence to beware of thoughts of doubt. If one does 
not think, no doubts will enter his mind. He must not 
communicate, say these moral and spiritual monitors, 
with fellow-men who doubt whether they are right them- 
selves, nor with excarnate spirits who have the ability 
to think and to express themselves on subjects vital to 
the progress of the people of the earth. 

It is only mental cowards that fear danger in inter- 
viewing any of the living things that environ them in 
either the incarnate or the excarnate state of existence. 
Who but a coward would have fear, or be apprehensive 
of evil or of danger, if he should meet in person the 
historical Lucifer and all the so-called fallen angels, 
said to constitute one-third of the population of heaven, 
that he brought with him ? The immigration regulations 
on this planet must have been very lax at one time to 
permit angels to migrate to it. The territory called 
heaven could not have been very large when it was pos- 
sible for this little, far-off earth to accommodate one- 
third of its population without any one's making a pro- 
test or getting out an injunction. 

According to some of the Church Fathers, there would 
have been no spirits in and upon the earth, to environ 
and communicate with spirit-man, had it not been for 



Identification of Excarnate Beings 69 

Lucifer and his band of angels from heaven who located 
on this planet. Many good people would find this a 
cheerless and godless world without excarnate spirits to 
communicate with, since they are so vitally helpful to 
those whose immortal souls and spirit-senses are opened, 
and who are thus able to comprehend the workings of 
the laws of Nature. Naturally all those who have to 
depend upon their animal state of mind and their senses 
are full of fear and have a sense of danger when so- 
called ghosts are mentioned, and this is as it should 
be; the mentally blind flee when no one pursues them. 

Negative Attitude of the Clergy 

Well-intentioned ministers of the gospel constantly 
reiterate that the spirits of the departed abide in the 
graves and there await the judgment day, at which time 
they will come forth from all the ancient and modern 
graveyards, and, when the angel Gabriel sounds his 
trumpet, will arise and ascend into heaven or descend 
into hell with their ludicrous once-enfleshed earth-bodies. 
To this absurdity, arising from utter lack of spiritual 
comprehension, they add that Lucifer and his angels will 
cease to exist in the twinkling of an eye, and that the 
wicked are to be cast into a realm of utter darkness 
lighted only by the flames of burning sulphur and brim- 
stone. 

Now, all these various ideas, mythical or otherwise, 
regarding men, angels, spirits, Lucifer, and even Santa 
Claus, are fresh mental yeast-cakes to keep up constant 
fermentation within the mind of spirit-man, for the 
purpose of brewing thoughts that ought to be very intoxi- 
cating, humorous fairy-tales adding sweetness to Nature's 
thought-brewing process, which should never cease if 



70 Man: Whence and Whither? 

one wishes to attain anything tangible by the dynamic 
action of the mind. 

How amazingly ridiculous and presumptuous it is to 
suppose that, from the time when animal-like man began 
to chatter a few words of a language about a hundred 
thousand years ago down to his present semi-civilized 
state, God could give him messages when his mind and 
senses were little more developed than those of animals, 
and while he was lost in Mammon's conscious night ! 

In the obscuration of spirit-man's mental dilemma, 
when his mind gropes about to find a path to the light, 
many teachers and preachers have tried, with oracular 
arrogance and certitudinous complacency, to point out 
the way of deliverance. But their mental dynamos were 
so weak that one lone idea stopped their motion, and 
they have been harping on that single string ever since, 
believing and proclaiming that they have found the way 
and have the only message from God regarding the 
means of man's deliverance from his ignorance and his 
deplorably undeveloped state. 

There is no place in either heaven or hen for an 
ignorant spirit-man, since he belongs rather to the animal 
than to the human domain of Nature. As Ingersoll has 
well expressed it : "The people perish for lack of know- 
ledge. Nothing but education — scientific education — can 
benefit mankind. We must find out the laws of nature 
and conform to them." But spirit-man is an extremely 
lazy creature, by natural inheritance from his animal 
forerunners, and has no desire to think or work, any more 
than a muskrat or a turtle, so far as the unfoldment of 
his mind is concerned. 

The Bible records many instances of messages from 
God and the angels, delivered to spirit-man at various 
times and places; but the self -constituted expounders of 



Identification of Excarnate Beings 71 

the Scriptures are as a rule quite unable to discuss these 
intelligently. They do not possess sufficient mental un- 
foldment to enable their ordinary senses to perceive the 
phenomena of excarnate spirit existence and to under- 
stand how communication between excarnate and incar- 
nate beings can be effected; therefore — although it is a 
subject that, as ministers, they should be competent to 
explain and elucidate — they very prudently avoid it or 
fail to mention the bearing of the recorded Biblical cases 
of spirit communication upon the question of such inter- 
course at the present day. 

The Great Teacher, about whom they profess to know 
so much, healed the sick and cast out evil spirits from 
the bodies of spirit-men. Moreover he said: "Greater 
things than these shall ye do." And in the Epistles we 
read regarding healing: "If any be sick among you, 
let them send for the elders of the church." But of all 
these things the reverend gentlemen say little and know 
less, not having any real knowledge of the operation of 
natural laws in this metaphysical domain. 

A professor lecturing on higher mathematics is pre- 
sumed to be familiar with the details of his subject, 
however difficult, and it would be very embarrassing for 
him to evade complicated parts of it in consequence of 
ignorance. This very thing, however, we frequently find 
in the pulpit, from which apparently no one is debarred 
for lack of spiritual knowledge or of insight into the 
higher realities. But we must charge ministers not 
merely with evasion and resorting to stock formulas such 
as saving grace, atonement, salvation through faith, and 
the like, which is bad enough, but also with positive 
perversion of truth and promulgation of false doctrines, 
which is infinitely worse. But people will not be led, 
or misled, any longer with "fears of hell and hopes of 



72 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

paradise," and they are coming to demand frank, open, 
honest, and truthful statements in regard to the things 
of the spirit. 

I once heard an Irish clergyman try to explain away 
certain derogatory remarks that he heard had been made 
about him. The matter was a very embarrassing and 
difficult one for him, and he hemmed and hawed con- 
fusedly for a time. Finally, however, he "got his bear- 
ings" and informed his amused congregation that he 
was just as good as his nationality, temperament, educa- 
tion, and development of mind would permit. "Honest 
confession is good for the soul," it is said; and people 
always respect a candid admission of intellectual limita- 
tion on the part of a speaker or leader. 

It would be illuminating and highly revelatory if the 
ministers of the various religious sects were to deliver 
a number of discourses on what they do not know about 
the spirit phenomena mentioned in the Bible, concluding 
with a talk on the little they actually know and can 
demonstrate regarding the laws that govern all mental 
action and interaction in Nature. Unfortunately we 
cannot look forward to such a series of sermons, for the 
speakers would therein reveal themselves as blind lead- 
ing the blind. 

Of late it has been thoroughly demonstrated to man- 
kind that certain varieties of false religious belief can 
get men as well as nations into serious trouble. Certain 
groups of men, or nations, firmly convinced that God 
is on their side, proceed to fight other groups, regard- 
less of how much slaughter and devastation may result, 
thereby merely repeating in modified form the history 
of mankind as recorded in the Old Testament. (Perhaps 
it is the devil, not God, who is their champion!) 

The ministers of various religious denominations tell 



Identification of Excarnate Beings 73 

us of a jealous and revengeful God who created all things 
in heaven and on earth, and without whom nothing was 
made. They tell us, too, about Lucifer, who made so 
much trouble in heaven, and who, with his angels, has 
ruled this earth for two hundred million years and will 
continue to do so until another world war takes place 
and is fought to a final finish in 1925, according to the 
prediction of certain queer Bible students. The follow- 
ing is their adaptation of one of our most popular hymns : 

"Mine eyes can see the glory of the presence of the Lord; 
He is trampling out the winepress where his grapes of wrath 

are stored; 
I see the flaming tempest of his swift descending sword; 
Our King is marching on ! 

"Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! 
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! 
Glory, Glory, Hallelujah! 
Our King is marching on! 

"I can see his coming judgments, as they circle all the earth, 
The signs and groanings promised to precede a second birth ; 
I read his righteous sentence in the crumbling thrones of 
earth ; 
Our King is marching on!" 

Yet spirit-man seems to be doing a little independent 
thinking nowadays, and Nature never seems to care 
whether it is wrong or right, so long as he keeps on 
thinking more and harder than ever before. 

If all the psychophysical phenomena that are said to 
have occurred in heaven and on earth between God and 
Lucifer can be shown to be in conformity with natural 
laws, it is natural to suppose that they actually took place 



74 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

and that they can take place again. But we must remem- 
ber that many of the earth's phenomena occur in accord- 
ance with subtler and higher laws than can be demon- 
strated in our laboratories — laws that elude, and will 
continue to elude, the clumsy efforts of the physical 
scientist altogether. 

An excellent conception of religion is that of the 
simple-minded old peasant woman who said: "I want 
to rise from my grave with a pail of water in one hand 
and a brazier filled with burning coals in the other. 
With the water I will put out the fires of Hell. And 
with the brazier I will set fire to Heaven and burn it 
all up. And then the people will love God and His Son 
for themselves alone, not because they fear Hell's fire 
or selfishly desire eternal bliss/' 

There is one especial, peculiar, divine attribute predi- 
cated of God, and I cannot understand why any more 
limiting qualities were added to detract from that one, 
namely, God knows no evil. This is a glorious scien- 
tific fact in Nature that can be proved, demonstrated, 
and realized both on earth and in heaven. 

All that spirit-man's mind needs, wants, and desires 
in the domain of Nature can be his if he will labor 
assiduously to acquire the mental ability to perceive and 
attain it. For many thousands of years spirit-man's 
mind and body were corralled and cooped up on a small 
portion of this earth. Time waited patiently for the 
birth of a scientific thinker of heroic mold and daunt- 
less courage, in the person of Christopher Columbus, 
whose will defied all obstacles, difficulties, and dangers 
that stood in the way of the attainment of his great pur- 
pose. Purely as the result of scientific study a great 
additional expanse (two entire continents) was discovered 
and made available for settlement, and needed space for 



Identification of Excarnate Beings 75 

the development and expansion of so-called civilized man 
was thus happily afforded. All of this was due to a 
scientific mind aided by a then recently developed instru- 
ment, the magnetic compass. In this manner a study of 
Nature's wonderful laws enabled an immortal spirit 
embodied in a human personality to become one of the 
great benefactors of mankind. 

There is no chance, no destiny, no fate 
Can circumvent, or hinder, or control 
The firm resolve of a determined soul. 

Gifts count for nothing; will alone is great; 

All things give way before it, soon or late. 
What obstacle can stay the mighty force 
Of the sea-seeking river in its course, 

Or cause the ascending orb of day to wait? 
Each well-born soul must win what it deserves. 

Let the fool prate of luck. The fortunate 
Is he whose earnest purpose never swerves, 
Whose slightest action or inaction serves 

The one great aim. Why, even death stands still, 

And waits an hour sometimes for such a will. 

— Ella Wheeler Wilcox. 

Now vast multitudes of spirits wearing the mask of 
man inhabit all portions of the two new continents. 
Naturally they are not content in their new abode, being 
cooped up like chickens or confined like pigs in a pen. 
In their minds there naturally arise more needs, wants, 
and desires, and their spirits hunger and thirst for a 
wider scope for mind action; hence the attainment of a 
new ovate region belonging to this earth becomes a 
necessity for the satisfaction of spirit-man's yearning 
for greater liberty of thought and action. 

Scientific study of the laws of mental action and 



^6 Man : Whence and Whither ? 

mental unfoldment has opened up a new ovate continent, 
or a zone for the habitation of spirits in a slightly less 
dense embodiment than the one used while gaining know- 
ledge and experience on the mundane plane, or densest 
phenomenal region of the earth. Nature in her wisdom 
bides her time, as in the case of the discovery of new 
continents by Columbus, and awaits a fitting moment 
for the exploration, by sufficiently courageous spirit-men, 
of other inhabited regions belonging to the earth's ovate 
extension, in much the same way as Columbus discovered 
regions already inhabited by both incarnate and excarnate 
beings. 

Many centuries before the time of Christ the Egyptians 
knew and taught the immortality of the soul, and this 
truth was asserted by Greek writers from Herodotus to 
Aristotle. Plato, who was born in 428 B.C., taught the 
doctrine more plainly than any other Greek philosopher. 
This teaching also appeared at an early date in India, 
where it was handed down from teacher to pupil for 
centuries and is explained in numerous old mystical and 
philosophic writings. 

The fact of the continuation of both the personality 
and the individuality of a spirit, after the discarding of 
the temporary mask utilized in the incarnate state, should 
have been common knowledge among mankind ever since 
the first promulgation of the doctrine of immortality in 
Egypt and in India. 

A pall of mental darkness resulting from abnormal 
psychophysical causes has enveloped the earth's inhabi- 
tants ever since the dawn of civilization, and it has 
abated but little up to the present time. History records 
the result of blind man's groping forward under blind 
leaders during the long night of his enthralment. The 
nations of the earth have passed through the throes of 



Identification of Excarnate Beings 77 

many psychological cataclysms, and the most recent one, 
which began in Europe in 1914, has seared the minds 
of men who do not understand the principles of cause 
and effect at work in both national and international 
psychosis, or mental derangement. 

No human progress of real consequence can be achieved 
so long as the characteristics of the animal, Mammon, 
and theological types of consciousness are predominant 
among both men and nations. 



CHAPTER IX 

SOME FACTORS OF MAN'S ENVIRONMENT 

The vast expanse of so-called space that envelops the 
apparently solid earth like an immense shell, with the 
globe in its center, is really an essential continuation 
outward of the planet itself. The great region that 
extends from the earth's surface to the outer border of 
the ovate zones is compactly filled with phenomena sim- 
ilar to those of the mundane plane, the density of embodi- 
ment decreasing successively from zone to zone. The 
seemingly solid incarnate center, or core, called the earth 
is radioactive, and the continuous emanations from the 
immense volume of its varied constituents pass outward 
into the less dense globular extension of the earth, and 
vice versa. 

It is conceivable that the rate and the amount of 
radioactivity emanating from the body of spirit-man 
within a single hour might transform every conscious 
unit of his organism. The radioactive emanations from 
a unit of mind, or from an aggregation of sentient units 
forming a corporeal body, reveal its life history to a 
psychic observer, whether it be in a denser or a less 
dense state of incarnate existence. 

In the great globular or ovate extension of the earth 
there exist and function all the psychoplastic elements 
and all the other phenomena of life that are manifested 
upon the denser region that we know as the earth's 
surface. 

78 



Some Factors of Man's Environment 79 

Let us consider, as an instructive example, the psycho- 
plastic substance called water — an element that covers 
two-thirds of the total area of our globe and is so very 
essential to life in every form. Through the inexorable 
law of disintegration, water (like all the other incarnate 
phenomena in Nature) constantly excarnates and passes 
into a less dense phenomenal region of the earth, the 
atmosphere, remaining there for a time in a vaporized 
state. Through the corresponding natural law of integra- 
tion, which is a phase of incarnation, it undergoes a 
process of gestation by accretion, and is formed into 
flocculent cumuli of condensing vapor; these, growing 
ever denser, heavier, and darker, become more or less 
opaque clouds, which exclude the sunlight and darken 
the regions of the earth over which they move, until 
finally, accompanied at times with vivid flashes of light- 
ning and peals of thunder, the water is reincarnated on 
the earth in the form of raindrops, hail, snow, dew, or 
frost, thus becoming once more a part of earth's objective 
phenomena. 

In consequence of this cyclic process, water is often 
used as an analogy for the incarnation and excarnation 
of spirit-man, as in the following lines translated from 
the German of Goethe : 

"The soul of man 
Is like the water. 
From heaven it cometh, 
To heaven it mounteth, 
And thence at once 
It must back to earth, 
Forever changing." 

Perhaps something of the same water-analogy was 



80 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

present as an underlying thought in Tennyson's mind 
when he wrote : 

"The hills are shadows, and they flow 
From form to form, and nothing stands; . . . 
Like clouds they shape themselves and go." 

In this fashion all that constitutes the integral part 
of the phenomena of life in the more ethereal planetary 
regions can put forth creative energy and utter the cre- 
ative word, whereupon reintegration or reincarnation 
begins to take place. Through Nature's law of accretion 
and the phenomenal process of embodiment the ethereal, 
sentient substance becomes denser and denser, until a 
nebular mass is observed, out of which a planet is in 
due time formed. Around this apparently solidified plan- 
etary kernel there remains great ovate zones of more 
ethereal psychoplastic world-material, the whole aggre- 
gate forming a suitable field for the evolution of the 
being called man, who appears in race after race upon 
the planet. 

"Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground; 
Another race the following spring supplies ; 
They fall successive and successive rise." 

An amazing variety of life phenomena is to be seen 
in the vast ovate zones that surround the denser core, 
or kernel, of the earth, just as the juicy, luscious fruit- 
meat encloses and envelops the stone of a peach, within 
which there is held and protected the seed, with its won- 
derful creative potency. 

The crust of the earth may be likened to the shell of 



Some Factors of Man's Environment 8 1 

a peach stone, or pit. Within that crust, or shell, is 
contained the kernel of an involved planet; and, as it 
passes through the throes of many psychophysical eras, 
the fruit of its evolution, or growth, will appear on the 
outside of its crust, in an ovate mass, like the fruit-meat 
of a peach. The same is true of the great spherical 
regions of the earth's extension, all the phenomena of 
which present close similarities in embodiment, existence, 
and function. 

It is truly amazing to note how the mass of Nature's 
more or less dense flocculent cumuli is filled with beings 
having forms analogous to that of man, from the tiniest 
speck of embodiment of mind up through all the numer- 
ous gradations to that of a corporeal form in the full 
stature of a spirit that can incarnate as a man. These 
beings exist and function in diversified embodiments of 
various degrees of density, partly through the aid of 
spirit-man's thought-creations, but more especially 
through the abnormal desires of the carnal mind. Man's 
thought-creations aid a great mass of these beings to 
assume a denser embodiment and to become the dependent 
children, so to speak, of those who by persistently repeated 
thoughts and acts have brought them into intimate rela- 
tion with their mind impulses and their physical func- 
tionings. 

A larger book than this could be written on the sub- 
ject of the thought-embodied beings that become inti- 
mately attached to the mortal thinker and doer; but I 
have no desire to describe the lustful phenomena created 
by spirit-man's debauched thoughts and deeds, which are 
the cause of the denser embodiment of legions of beings 
of a type in consonance therewith. These, like leeches, 
sap the mental and physical vitality of their creators, 
and vitiate whatever moral and spiritual qualities they 



82 Man: Whence and Whither? 

possess, sending them to an untimely death and into an 
excarnate state of existence appropriate to their nature. 

Through the operation of the natural law of mind, 
spirit-man attracts to himself elements and nature-spirits 
(as we shall call them for lack of a more specific classi- 
fication), which constitute a large part of his environ- 
ment, enabling him to exist and function mentally and 
physically in whatever manner his will directs. They are 
the sentient, incarnate builders of his body; they sustain 
his psychophysical functions, make possible his creation 
of thought phenomena, and serve as his messengers. 
They are thus useful and obedient servitors to a domi- 
nant will, for evil or for good. They constitute the phe- 
nomenal, sentient world-material, and are ever ready to 
serve spirit-man's needs, wants, and desires in the degree 
that he is able to command and to hold them. 

Naturally all grades of embodied and evolved spirits 
that attend spirit-man in mutual companionship need to 
be educated and unfolded by the being they so faithfully 
serve. They look upon him as a tutor, often as a god, 
and will respond promptly to every degree of unfold- 
ment that their master is able to effect in them. The 
whole of spirit-man's environment is made up of living 
beings (as we may call them) that surround him as 
completely as water envelops the denizens of the deep. 
He lives, moves, and creates while submerged in an 
ocean of diversified mind-units. 

These are not, however, the only aids that Nature 
affords to spirit-man in his ascent to higher states. In 
addition to the help he receives from his incarnate fellow 
beings, we must emphasize the assistance and encourage- 
ment that he constantly receives from such of his fellows 
as have preceded him into the excarnate state, who are 
about him at all times and endeavor to assist him while 



Some Factors of Mans Environment 83 

he is still enwrapped in the dense armor of the physical 
organism. And above all spirit-man is aided by loftier 
beings who are emancipated from the thraldom of the 
animal and Mammon planes of consciousness and can 
thus inspire and endow him with higher, nobler, and 
holier thoughts. They hasten the unfoldment of his 
own higher faculties of mind by varied demonstrations 
of Nature's laws. And as the godlike tutors in Nature's 
Cosmic School teach their pupils the normal creative use 
of the mind, the latter progress uninterruptedly with 
increasing knowledge, wisdom, and happiness. While on 
their eternal excursion throughout the macrocosm, they 
meet hosts of beings that have gone on before, and 
obtain from them a large amount of useful information 
about the greater and more glorious planes of mind- 
unfoldment yet to be attained. Do such spirits need to 
be "identified" personally? By no means, since theii 
thoughts and acts and mental aura are a sufficient identi- 
fication for any one who wishes unselfishly to obtain 
useful knowledge and who welcomes the help that they 
can give. 

Through the carnal density of the mind of spirit-man 
there have percolated in past ages indefinite ideas about 
fantastic beings seen in the midst of the thick, flocculent, 
floating, swaying world-stuff that environs him by day 
and by night, and a few of the names that he has given 
to these legions of mysterious entities are as follows: 
elves, fairies, sprites, trolls, gnomes, kobolds, dryads, 
nixies, undines, sylphs, salamanders, newts, vampires, 
incubi, succubi, seraphim, and cherubim. But none of 
these are so malevolent, alarming, or unreal as Satan, 
whom most Christian people allege to exist as a personal 
devil. There is always somebody to take the joy out 
of life for those who are afraid of so-called ghosts. 



84 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

I quote but one of the numerous poetic testimonies to 
the existence of these fantastic beings, showing how the 
concept is developed and handed down from generation 
to generation: 



"And with him the clear singing nymphs 
Move quick their feet, by a dark-water's spring 
In the soft mead; where crocus, hyacinth, 
Fragrant and blooming, mingle with the grass, 
Confused; and sing, while echo peals around 
The mountain's top." 



We do not need to project our vision into the excar- 
nate regions of our world in order to discern the num- 
ber and variety of embodied beings and other objects 
that coexist with us, since they are visibly present in 
the denser incarnate state of existence. To designate 
their peculiar mental and bodily characteristics, they are 
called by various names and epithets, such as: churl, 
tyke, bum, dolt, dude, chump, vulpine, plebeian, scamp, 
rogue, yokel, knave, jehu, dido, and the like; and we 
have equally picturesque names for various monstrosities 
of mind and body that are observed among the inhab- 
itants of the earth. Even in the present era of sup- 
posed civilization we can detect in the human mind and 
body traits of the man-like marsupial, lemur, monkey, 
ape, chimpanzee, orang-outang, gorilla, and other animals, 
wild and tame, that have not yet been effaced or replaced 
in the process of evolution. 

Spirit-man has for ages longed, hoped, and prayed 
for freedom from his selfish and vicious qualities and 
impulses. But such freedom can be attained only through 
the creative power of his will. This has been well 



Some Factors of Man's Environment 85 

expressed in the following inspiring lines by that poetess 
of spiritual things, Ella Wheeler Wilcox: 

"I care not who were vicious back of me; 
No shadow of their sins on me is shed. 
My will is greater than heredity ; 

I am no worm to feed upon the dead. 

My face, my form, my gestures, and my voice 
May be reflections from a race that was. 

But this I know, and, knowing it, rejoice : 
I am, myself, a part of the Great Cause. 

I am a spirit ! Spirit would suffice, 

If rightly used, to set a chained world free. 

Am I not stronger than a mortal vice 

That crawls the length of some ancestral tree?" 

We must acclaim and hold in the highest esteem a 
certain historic personage of conspicuous qualities; one 
who could feel the innate promptings of a potential pur- 
pose and duty in life; one who sincerely studied the 
depths of his own mind and there found his bent and 
got his bearings; one who was acquainted with scientific 
facts and could reason from cause to effect; one who 
silently listened to the promptings of his innermost con- 
sciousness and daily heeded its prophecies; one who 
believed implicitly in the course of action that suggested 
itself in his soul after due meditation; one who did not 
exactly understand the source of the ideas that came into 
his mind, but knew that, being there, they were whole- 
some and good; one who realized, from a scientific sur- 
vey of the ferment of ideas within his mind, that they 
must be true and that one thus grounded and fortified 
must get demonstration; one who sought and finally 



86 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

obtained the necessary help from others, infecting them 
with their enthusiasm and determination; one who, as 
an intrepid mariner, sailed out into the vast uncharted 
expanse of ocean; one whose indomitable mind realized 
and demonstrated that there was a new continent west- 
ward of the Old World; an immortal benefactor of 
mankind — Christopher Columbus ! 

His was a discovery of momentous importance, open- 
ing up to new development and settlement two entire 
continents. But discoveries of undreamt-of consequences 
have been made in other fields as well. Only eighty- 
odd years ago a new vista was opened out after over 
five thousand years spent in the effort to drill and blast 
a channel for the entrance of a new fact into mankind's 
petrified consciousness. In the Old World there had 
been at times partial success, followed by renewed failure, 
in the attempt to penetrate the barriers of ignorance and 
prejudice and bigotry, and the slaves to authority on 
the one hand and the rationalizing skeptics on the other 
made it impossible for the enlightened few to disseminate 
new truths widely. So the laborious task was transferred 
from the Old World to the New, the boasted land of 
liberty, where freedom from destructive assaults was to 
be expected. 

Some two hundred years were patiently devoted to a 
continuous search for the most suitable locality for the 
penetration of the animal and Mammon consciousness 
of the inhabitants of the new continent, and finally Salem, 
Massachusetts, was tried as an entering wedge. The 
unfortunate result is well known. The inevitable bigotry 
showed itself again, and sensitive psychics were labeled 
witches and subjected to cruel tortures and hideous deaths 
— a most disgraceful and barbarous series of crimes, 
which are a standing discredit to this land of the free 



Some Factors of Maris Environment 87 

and home of the brave (but not of the just). There- 
fore, mankind continued to sleep on in its benighted 
state until a new effort at enlightenment should be made. 

"God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to per- 
form." And so it was that in due time the myopic, 
bewildered, and obtuse consciousness of the world was 
dreadfully shocked and amazed at the strange happen- 
ings reported from Rochester, New York. The persons 
through whom the phenomena there occurred and the 
students of the laws of mental science that flocked to 
learn about these phenomena were for a long time in 
great danger from the vicious mob element that is so 
easily aroused and unleashed where ignorance and a cer- 
tain bigoted type of religion and priestcraft prevail. 

Soon, however, the Satanic minds of the people were 
again lulled to sleep, believing that the happenings at 
Rochester were only the dream of a few addle-pated per- 
sons and that the phantom would soon be forgotten, as 
all other scarecrows had been in times past in the Old 
World and in the New, whether ghosts, hobgoblins, or 
devils. In this proud land of liberty all were asleep as 
usual under the influence of the ancestral thought lethargy 
and chronic mental inertia; yet the phenomena, though 
alleged by detractors to be caused by Lucifer and his 
angels, rapidly spread all over the earth, and the believers 
in the newly revealed truths increased to great numbers, 
quite beyond the possibility of being crushed out as in 
past ages with their diabolical bigotry. 

We have learned from our excarnate friends and com- 
panions much about the ovate extension of the earth, 
consisting of successive concentric zones each of which 
is a special field of evolution. We have learned much 
also from the inhabitants of the various ovate zones, 
but more especially from those of the one that environs 



88 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

and envelops us somewhat as water surrounds the deni- 
zens of the sea. Spirit-man and excarnate spirits make 
their way alike through the elements of the earth's ovate 
zone, which reproduces in large part the phenomena of 
that part of the planetary psychophysical organism that 
we see about us. 

To have something more to think about and to explore 
than the crust of this prosaic part of our earthly abode 
affords us a grand and glorious opportunity. It gives 
us a larger intellectual and spiritual scope and expands 
the mental vision. The pleasure, beauty, and joy it pro- 
vides are sublime. You may have the kindly visits of 
angels, gods, and goddesses to give you cheer and to 
supply information that you can cognize, retain, and 
utilize. As this knowledge becomes a part of your 
being, more and more is added, and the mind is thus 
unfolded rapidly and enabled to receive still higher lessons 
from its tutors in Nature's Cosmic School. 

The discovery of the earth's ovate zones and their 
inhabitants, who are our "unseen" companions, is the 
greatest permanent benefaction that was ever bestowed 
upon the benighted human race, for without it the world 
would still be lingering entirely in primeval darkness. 
The importance of this discovery is most profound, for 
it heralded the dawn of the approaching millennium. 



CHAPTER X 

THOUGHT PHENOMENA AND THE ENVIRONMENT 
OF BEING 

The various zones that constitute the earth and its 
ovate extension are not greatly unlike one another in 
their density or in the nature of their phenomena. As 
we proceed outward from the center in our survey, each 
ovate zone is found to be of lesser density and to present 
more ethereal types of phenomena than the preceding 
one. The interior of the earth is, as might be supposed, 
somewhat denser and darker in color, with dark brown 
as its predominant hue, intermingled with light gray and 
having specks of a silvery sheen shooting through the 
dark, dense, smokelike (or sootlike), flocculent cumuli 
of psychoplastic material, in which there are countless 
living entities of many sizes and all stages of embodi- 
ment up to that of spirit-man. It is really Nature's 
incubator, formed of a rather compact, transparent, 
homogeneous mass of world-substance, from which all 
the phenomena of earth have been and are being evolved. 

An impressionist artist is needed to paint the interior 
of the earth and its ovate zones, with their varied degrees 
of density and their various tones of color. He would 
depict for us the phenomena of the mineral, vegetable, 
animal, and human life-waves, and all the beings, great 
and small, in the incarnate and excarnate phases of 
existence. After representing the central region, he 
would picture the first ovate zone, which environs spirit- 

89 



90 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

man in somewhat denser and darker, mossy, flocculent, 
fluffy, moving, pulsating cumuli of psychoplastic world- 
material and is dotted with specks resembling snow- 
flakes, or with iridescent crystals sparkling in the con- 
glomeration of living things dwelling in that zone for 
the expression of some aspect of their natures and the 
development of certain of their innate attributes. We 
might thus obtain a glimpse of the continuous mass of 
living things in that environment, no two life-units touch- 
ing each other, however tiny, and yet grouping them- 
selves into aggregations of every conceivable gradation 
of size and nature. 

We should thus gain some conception of this first 
zone of the earth's extension, which holds the denser 
center within it somewhat as an apple contains its core, 
and should come to know more in detail about the excar- 
nate beings inhabiting it and about its many manifesta- 
tions that resemble and duplicate in some measure those 
that environ us. Then the artist, had he the vision, 
might present to our gaze a view of each succeeding 
ovate zone, the substance and structure and coloring 
becoming rarer and more wonderful with each succeed- 
ing step outward from the center, and each zone offering 
to the pupils of Nature's Cosmic School a different and 
higher opportunity for unfoldment of latent faculties, 
as well as a finer and more beautiful field for the exer- 
cise of powers already developed in lower and more 
interior zones. 

The kernel containing the involved attributes and the 
potency of a planetary system is naturally incased in a 
shell, or crust, on which there collects and persists a sort 
of scum, presenting the phenomena of all sorts of partially 
evolved things with many kinds of embodiment, spirit- 
man in his incarnate state being located there as well. 



Thought Phenomena and Environment of Being 91 

The more complex and more fully evolved creatures 
that environ spirit-man are the marsupials, semi-apes, 
tailed apes, narrow-nosed apes, gorillas, orang-outangs, 
man-like apes, and ape-like men. Finally the last and 
most complex being was evolved, "the diapason," as 
Alexander Pope puts it, "closing full in man." Spirit- 
man has the honor and the distinction of surpassing all 
the preceding forms of incarnated life, yet he is still 
often cynically referred to as the "scum of the earth!" 
The following quotations from familiar hymns will serve 
to show how spirit-man's high station has been traduced : 

"How vain are all things here below, 
How false, and yet how fair ! 
Each pleasure hath its poison too, 
And every sweet a snare. 

Plunged in a gulf of dark despair, 

We wretched sinners lay, 
Without one cheering beam of hope, 

Or spark of glimm'ring day. 

Wretched, helpless, and distrest, 

Ah! whither shall I fly? 
Ever gasping after rest, 

I cannot find it nigh. 

Lord, and is thine anger gone 

And art thou pacified? 
After all that I have done, 

Dost thou no longer chide? 

Loathsome, and vile, and self-abhorr'd, 
I sink beneath my sin. . . . 

******** 

Ye slaves of sin and hell, . . ." 



92 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

Recounting the sins of man, his unworthiness, and 
his abject begging, annuls whatever good sentiments 
may be found elsewhere in a hymn. The singing of 
such songs sets in motion a coarse variety of mind-stuff, 
dark in color, reminding one of soft coal dust or black 
smoke, with here and there some varying shades of gray 
—a release of forces little better than one would expect 
to find in a bawdy dance-house. In this atmosphere 
human spirits belonging to a low mind-plane find a 
congenial mental environment. 

Who ever heard a general in command of an army 
recount the defects and weaknesses of his men as a 
means of inspiring them to heroic deeds? Would he be 
likely to recall and describe the battles lost by his ances- 
tors, or only those where victory was won? 

The finest and most perfect fruit of a planet must 
naturally be situated around its shell, in the kernel of 
which it was germinated. It is simply in accordance 
with natural law that the central part of the earth, pre- 
senting such varied phenomena of life, should be sur- 
rounded with analogous ovate zones, each providing 
appropriate and congenial environment for the unfold- 
ment in mind and body of different grades of beings. 

We must remember that all is mind, or spirit, and that 
each unit of consciousness is an integral part of a planet, 
however diversified the manifestations may be. From 
each unit there is emitted sentient, radioactive material 
that mingles with the psychoplastic substance that 
environs it and there manifests and constructs whatever 
the individual unit has evolved from within itself; and 
this process continues, no matter how tiny the unit may 
be or what degree of aggregation its embodiment may 
exemplify. Conversely also there is a definite effect of 
the environment upon the individual unit, so that with 



Thought Phenomena and Environment of Being 93 

this alternate influx and efflux a constant interaction is 
maintained between the two. 

By way of illustration it may be stated that 'the 
thoughts of a person near dissolution, or of one who 
is "dead," bring about in the ordinary person an asso- 
ciation of ideas creating an objective embodiment of all 
the successive stages leading up to the burial. Over- 
shadowing this actual, living, objective scene is a canopy 
of dense, dark color, making a very oppressive phenome- 
non that enshrouds all who aided in the thought-creation 
or took part in the singing of a dirge. 

On the other hand, minds that are thinking of Santa 
Claus, for instance, will produce quite different phe- 
nomena, altogether unlike those associated with the death 
scene to which I have just alluded. In this case the 
picture created is of one who brings countless good gifts 
and creates hope, gladness, love, and joy; and this crea- 
tion illumines a vast region with a halo or aura of inter- 
blending hues of green, silver, and gold. The whole 
conception is associated with the snowy and frosty moun- 
tain fastnesses of the reindeer, whence these animals draw 
Santa Claus in his sleigh laden with all manner of beau- 
tiful gifts through luminous regions of the sky to the 
chimney-tops of our earthly habitations. Truly, Santa 
Claus is the best intangible personality that the human 
mind has thus far created. 

Above the heads of the saints we often find pictured 
by painters and sculptors a circular halo. This represents 
the luminous, ethereal aura that actually radiates per- 
ceptibly from the bodies of persons of very high spiritual 
development, being particularly pronounced and notice- 
able about the head. Anything touched or handled by 
such a saintly individual will show this radiation in 
a lesser degree, and this accounts for the special value 



94 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

attached to relics in religious belief of a certain type. 
It is an evidence of the clearness of vision of the old 
masters of art that they were able to perceive and depict 
this psychophysical characteristic. 

All music, whether instrumental or vocal, creates and 
portrays objectively in the environment of the player or 
singer the very thoughts, emotions, and mental activities 
of the factors entering into its composition. Music is 
but a variety of language : it expresses thoughts and 
emotions, and it even depicts scenes with all their natural 
form and coloring. The nature of instrumental music 
of a military type has been referred to in a previous 
chapter. There are a few church hymns that, when 
well sung or played on an organ, present delightful liv- 
ing, objective phenomena, in which many beings play 
their part in a setting of appropriate colors and environ- 
ment, depicting all the beautiful thoughts and emotions of 
the composer's mind-plane of consciousness. 

The ovate psychoplastic extension of the earth that 
environs us and seemingly imprisons us is ever ready to 
duplicate and record our thoughts, emotions, words, and 
actions in living, objective reality, by a sort of cosmic 
photography registering minutely all that occurs in 
thought, feeling, word, or deed, on this incarnate zone, 
or plane. It constitutes an open book of life, wherein 
those may read who can. 

Every living entity plays its drama of life twice. One 
stage, that of incarnate existence, is dense; the other, 
that of excarnate existence, is more ethereal. But not 
one jot or tittle is omitted on either plane of expression 
that would make the scene lack completeness in the 
slightest detail. 

A canary has thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and 
expresses them in acts, chirps, and song, making them 



Thought Phenomena and Environment of Being 95 

vivid in setting, coloring, and environment. It thinks 
and sings of the forest, its nest, and its young; tor 
every seed, root, branch, limb, or leaf in its expression 
tells, as though in language, the whole story of its 
existence and function in its sentient environment in 
Nature. 

Is it worth while for spirit-man to strive to acquire 
the ability to communicate with all living entities that go 
to make up our phenomenal world? 



CHAPTER XI 

MAN AND HIS EXCARNATE COMPANIONS 

Each spirit being, whether incarnate or excarnate, is 
a receptive factor in a manifested world of its own 
creation. No two psychophysical organisms or entities 
present identically the same phenomena of mind action. 
Their past is dissimilar, and they do not at present think, 
look, act, or create alike ; hence each being, or microcosm, 
has a distinct individuality and personality, with different 
traits of mind and bodily form. Thus every being, 
whether he be in the incarnate or the excarnate phase 
of life, demonstrates the evolution of spirit; and this 
same law of distinct creative effort holds good and is 
manifested in all the domains of life below that of spirit- 
man. 

The mind that created and inhabits a little world of 
its own possesses the law, the attributes, and the essence 
of a psychodynamic generator of thought within itself. 
It is also a receiver of thought-messages from its environ- 
ment, a transformer of thought messages received from 
without, and a transmitter of thought messages from 
within. Mind is seemingly a well-equipped wireless sta- 
tion, able to act over a wide range. 

The more familiar we become with the subjects of 
psychonomy and psychogeny, or the laws governing the 
action of the mind and its unfoldment, the better we 
shall be prepared to communicate with excarnate beings 
and with all spirits manifesting on the lower planes of 

96 



Man and His Excarnate Companions 97 

consciousness, and the more clearly we shall comprehend 
the phenomena of Nature that so closely environ us and 
affect our welfare for good or ill. 

Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll has given us an excellent 
word-picture, which I shall quote, of a benighted mind 
lost in the world it created, but nevertheless dependent 
on the cosmic incubator, as are man-like apes, gorillas, 
chimpanzees, ape-like men, and the other orders of ani- 
mate Nature that surround spirit-man. Ingersoll wrote: 

In the brain, that wondrous world with one inhabitant, 
there are recesses dim and dark, treacherous sands and 
dangerous shores where seeming sirens tempt and fade, 
streams that rise in unknown lands from hidden springs, 
strange seas with ebb and flow of tides, resistless billows 
urged by storms of flame, profound and awful depths hidden 
by mist of dreams, obscure and phantom realms where vague 
and fearful things are half revealed, jungles where passion's 
tigers crouch, and skies of cloud and blue where fancies fly 
with painted wings that dazzle and mislead ; and the poor 
sovereign of this pictured world is led by old desires and 
ancient hates, and stained by crimes of many vanished years, 
and pushed by hands that long ago were dust, until he feels 
like some bewildered slave that Mockery has throned and 
crowned. 

This is an accurate presentation of the state of the 
authoritative minds of our day — the controlling intellects 
of our present civilization; hence the chaotic condition 
of our social fabric, which is only an indication of the 
travail, or labor, inevitable in the evolution of spirit-man 
to a higher and better plane of consciousness. The mind 
of spirit-man demands and must have a larger range of 
employment and endeavor than his animal consciousness 
affords, and this gives rise to the restless agitation for 
something better than the prosaic, humdrum, monotonous, 

7 



98 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

and circumscribed life he now lives. From within his 
mind come prophecies of something better, nobler, and 
holier in store for him. His intuition and impressibility 
tell him that there is something new, fine, and beautiful 
awaiting him — yet he does not know how to proceed to 
attain it. All religious sects promise him something bet- 
ter in the future through "faith." He asks why he can- 
not gain it in the present through study of the natural 
laws of his being. He demands it now. He will no 
longer be a slave to that which mockery has "throned 
and crowned." 

For a hundred thousand years or more spirit-man has 
wandered aimlessly about in the animal and Mammon 
realms of consciousness, his mind all the while feeding 
on husks and tares and foolishly hoping for happiness 
and great joy. Excarnate messengers came and went, 
and spirit-man dimly divined their presence and indis- 
tinctly caught impressions of a promised land that would 
enlarge his vision of life. Full of discontent and dis- 
trust and discouragement in the land of Mammon, and 
constantly pursued and afflicted by ancestral traits of 
mind and body, he was overwhelmed with despair and 
foreboding, and begged and cried aloud for safety, help, 
and mental peace. Over eighty years ago, however, the 
veil of ignorance began slowly to lift from his mind, 
and he passed out of the plane of Mammon's mental 
darkness into the promised land where excarnate and 
incarnate beings dwell together and communicate with 
one another. There he learned the true story of his 
deliverance from the animal, the Satanic, and the Mam- 
mon states of consciousness. 

Excarnate spirit messengers are ever operative on these 
three conscious planes, impressing, guiding, and encourag- 
ing the evolving spirit of man until the ancient veil 



Man and His Excarnate Companions 99 

before his mind is rent in twain and he attains the power 
to perceive through his immortal senses. Then he realizes 
that he is environed by an impalpable extension of the 
earth, wherein are duplicated virtually all the phenomena 
of life that surround him on the shell of the planet upon 
which he exists and functions for a time, as do all the 
other forms of evolving life. 

The awakened and evolved mind of the individual 
mortal can function with its five immortal senses in the 
excarnate promised land, and can see, hear, feel, smell, 
and taste the manifestations of life in that region, al- 
though it is a land less densely constituted and organized 
than his own, but whose inhabitants are legion and 
encompass spirit-man round about by day and by night, 
ever ready to respond and minister to his needs, wants, 
and desires and to fill him with delight, gladness, and 
joy. Words cannot express the marvelous grandeur and 
majesty and beauty of the ovate zones that environ the 
earth and its inhabitants, as revealed to the clairvoyant 
vision of the developed psychic. 

As spirit-man may be helped or harmed by one or 
more of his fellow-men, so likewise may he be affected 
by one or more excarnate beings. One must simply 
decide whom one will, and whom one will not, entertain 
and associate with. Birds of a feather usually flock 
together, and this is true of spirit-man and his com- 
panions. Incarnate spirit-man is more or less isolated 
from his fellow-man by the laws and limitations of his 
psychophysical organism; therefore he cannot be assisted 
by his fellow-mortals as readily as by excarnate beings, 
who seem ever ready to render aid when needed. To 
enjoy the watchful care and wise counsel of environ- 
mental angels, gods, and goddesses is a heaven on earth 
that is beyond the power of even a poet's pen to describe. 



ioo Man: Whence and Whither ? 

The dawn of the millennium begins when spirit-man's 
immortal soul and senses have gained the ascendancy 
over his animal mind and propensities. Many animals 
are born upon this incarnate plane without sight, and 
exist and function for nine or more days before the phe- 
nomenal world about them is seen with their own eyes; 
but almost all the human beings born into this world 
pass their entire lives without developing or using their 
immortal senses. 

The myriads of living forms of every description that 
spirit-man's corporeal mind and senses have been able to 
recognize, even with the aid of the microscope, form 
but an infinitesimal fraction of the sentient beings, ani- 
mate creatures, and vital organisms of every kind that 
fill so-called space and thus completely environ us. Man 
really exists and functions in the interior of the earth, 
on the crust or shell of its kernel, whereas excarnate 
spirits dwell in the great ovate or globular zone of the 
earth's extension that holds the denser portion, or core, 
in its center. 

An incarnated spirit in the form of man whose im- 
mortal soul and senses are more or less unfolded can 
communicate with an excarnate spirit possessing a sim- 
ilar unfoldment of soul and of its avenues of informa- 
tion. But incarnate and excarnate spirits whose minds 
and senses are limited to the animal consciousness have 
a very limited power of communicating with each other 
— virtually none at all, notwithstanding the Biblical 
record of the loquacity of Balaam's ass. When an 
incarnate being in the mask of man and an excarnate 
being possessing no unfoldment beyond that of the ani- 
mal mind and senses presume to teach and lead those 
that are as blind as themselves, they continue to flounder 
in ignorance and acquire no further knowledge as to the 



Man and His Excarnate Companions 101 

whence, the purpose, or the whither of the genus homo, 
whose existence and functions are governed wholly by 
natural law. 

During the unfoldment of the mind and senses of 
spirit-man he may frequently stumble and fall, owing to 
his lack of mental and physical development; but a will 
that knows no failure or defeat eventually impels him 
to continue his excursion into new planes or regions of 
the mind. With dauntless courage he will thus press 
on, discarding inherited mental rubbish for newer and 
better acquisitions, these in turn being left behind when 
he learns that any mental luggage at all will hinder the 
inflow and outflow of what the spirit may next perceive 
on continuing its journey further into the beautiful realms 
of Nature. 

Spirit-man and excarnate spirit, presenting only slightly 
different densities of embodiment, may readily communi- 
cate with each other if their immortal souls and senses 
are developed, and they may thus extend to each other 
such courtesies and civilities as their degree of refine- 
ment may suggest. An excarnate spirit can be your very 
best friend because he can tell you all your faults and 
love you still. And he can understand you, for he knows 
your every thought, your past actions, and your future 
purpose in life. 

If the individual spirit-man is sufficiently unfolded 
mentally he can interpret for himself the successive chap- 
ters of his past incarnate life, as well as the intimations 
of his future. When the book of his life is thus opened 
before him, he will realize the necessity of normal mind- 
creation in every respect while continuing his excursion 
into the unexplored regions of his own mind and learn- 
ing to comprehend his microcosm, wherein a godlike 
soul may reside and know no evil. 



102 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

It is a great privilege and pleasure to entertain faith- 
ful excarnate friends, who are constantly filling our lives 
with delight and joy by countless acts of love, kind- 
ness, and helpfulness, as they lead us on to fuller and 
greater realization and demonstration of the innate 
potency of our souls if normally directed. It is grand 
and glorious to entertain angels, gods, and goddesses in 
your home and wherever you journey; always to have 
an abundance of congenial company — beings that fill your 
home with plants, trees, and flowers or take you on an 
excursion into beautiful regions of Nature ; to know that 
these spirit beings have a purpose they are striving to 
accomplish, and that you can be of assistance to them in 
their effort to emancipate both incarnate and excarnate 
beings from the bonds of ignorance that hinder their 
unfoldment of mind and body; to have them act as 
messengers for you and bring back needed information; 
to know that they help you to limit cares that are not 
essential to your soul's unfoldment; to see them open 
a way through the earth's unbroken ovate or globular 
zones to more refined ethereal planes; to see beyond the 
mists and clouds of darker hues into the clear, brilliant, 
crystalline, diamond-like phenomena of a more sublimated 
zone, where the dross of the Mammon and animal con- 
sciousness has been entirely eliminated and the inhabitants 
know no evil; to know that the divinity of purpose and 
the glorious beauty of Nature are everywhere to be seen 
by him whose immortal soul and senses are sufficiently 
unfolded to perceive the presence of God in all natural 
phenomena ; to realize that the heaven or hell of incarnate 
and excarnate. beings is no better and no worse than 
their own state of mind creates for them and enables 
them to perceive; to know that blind faith in either 
ancient or modern authors acts as a lethal draught and 



Man and His Excarnate Companions 103 

puts the mind to sleep, inhibiting its creative functions 
and diminishing the resourcefulness that is so needful 
in evolving the potentialities latent within it. 

Beings wearing the incarnate personality called man, 
as well as those in the excarnate form called spirit, should 
employ their time in holding communication with other 
beings of every degree, and, after testing their nature, 
should continue their association only with those that give 
them the most and the best information, especially those 
that have wended their way from a far-off home. The 
halo and aura that accompany them will be a sufficient 
indication of the plane of consciousness they have 
attained. 

Do not waste your time and theirs by inquiring into 
their identity, but proceed to ascertain how much infor- 
mation they can impart that will awaken and stimulate 
active thought in your own mind. Having seen the great, 
beautiful, and magnificent attributes and endowments of 
an emancipated soul, your own soul is impelled to forge 
ahead by leaps and bounds to reach the same state of 
development; and when that is accomplished it longs to 
press on to still more lofty heights, from which it can 
perceive and appropriate more of the wisdom that the 
Teachers have to impart. The mind of man sorely needs 
a new ovate world-zone to explore — a new region whose 
inhabitants can give him information as to the shortest, 
quickest, and most agreeable route to take in order to 
get there, if a visit to any particular plane of conscious- 
ness should be desired. 

When a spirit first becomes a living being in the mask 
of corporeality, he finds hosts already here, some young 
and some very old ; and so it will ever be, upon whatever 
plane of consciousness one may function throughout 
eternity. Many will have gone before you and can meet 



104 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

you on the way and guide you toward better lands, very 
much as we do here on earth. There are always those 
who are ready and willing to show mankind Nature's 
normal way of evolving undeveloped minds from their 
low estate through alertness and activity of thought with- 
in themselves, and who thus help the soul gradually to 
create for itself a larger domain, until it eventually be- 
comes universal — one with the universal mind of Nature. 

Through the power and influence of the spirit beings 
that encompass and act upon him, man will ultimately 
attain redemption, or emancipation from his present ani- 
mal and Mammon consciousness and stage of develop- 
ment into a godlike race of people who know no evil. 
Mankind should heed and apply the messages and the 
counsel of the world of spirits that environ him, inas- 
much as they are able to show the way to those that 
have eyes to see, and give instruction to those that have 
ears to hear, teaching them how to obtain their natural 
birthright and their divine appanage by means of the 
normal creative use of their own minds. 

For those who still slumber in the Satanic consciousness 
let us hope that a day of awakening will soon be at hand. 
May the kindly light of higher realms lead them on, 
until they perceive, by the use of their immortal senses, 
the way to the throne of God! 



CHAPTER XII 

THE DESIGNER AND ITS PHENOMENA 

We have seen that every unit of mind has as its armor 
or instrument an archetypal psychophysical organism 
called spirit. The unit may exist in its original form, 
or in any one of the diverse kinds and degrees of embodi- 
ment (or incarnate state of existence), from the tiniest 
species up through many gradations of size and form to 
that of a spirit being with a mind sufficiently evolved to 
incarnate in a mask or personality called man. 

In a previous chapter it is asserted that there are no 
secrets, no mysteries, and no hidden labyrinths in Nature 
to a soul capable of perceiving its varied phenomena. 
We are now concerned with the terrestrial plane of mind 
manifestation, and especially with the phenomenon known 
as man. 

A unit of mind, or spirit, encased, for instance, in a 
root, nut, or seed, manifests itself in a somewhat less 
dense embodiment in the stem, limbs, leaves, blossoms, 
and fruit, while awaiting the opportunity to incarnate in 
a denser form, or replica. A spirit encased within a pink 
seed manifests its designated form in the stem, leaves, 
and branches, and in the variegated coloring of its 
blossoms, while waiting for a favorable condition to be- 
come embodied in a denser replica. It has its needs, 
wants, and desires, and when planted in the earth is 
supplied with numerous sentient nature-builders that fill 
out its design or form in accordance with every detail 

105 



106 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

of its particular nature and arrange all of the exquisite 
coloring that is so greatly admired for its own sake by 
those that perceive the outward appearance and nothing 
more. 

Every living thing in Nature has a specific kind of 
ethereal form, or design, embodying its individual char- 
acteristics and indicating the phenomena it will present 
when the organism becomes more densely incarnated 
through the accretion of sentient units filling out the 
ethereal matrix and forming a denser replica, or mask, 
through which it may be perceived by beings of unde- 
veloped mind and senses functioning in the vegetable, 
animal, and Satanic states of consciousness. 

Allow your mind to shape the image of an ethereal 
being, with osseous, nervous, and circulatory systems and 
all the organs of the human body minutely but distinctly 
represented in their proper location and relation to one 
another and supplied with a sort of ethereal covering, or 
vestment — this being existing and functioning in the 
ovate region of the earth that environs spirit-man, and 
possessing an individuality and a personality previously 
acquired through creative mental effort. In this ethereal 
form there takes place a psychophysical process of sen- 
tient accretion (called gestation, or incarnation), which 
fills out and enlarges the whole organism, with all its 
minute mental and physical details, into a denser sentient 
mask, or replica, called man. This result is accomplished 
through the accretive effort of the mind expressing need, 
want, and desire on the part of the incarnating being, and 
through the ready helpfulness of sentient units respond- 
ing to the call from a dominant mind for aid in further 
creative endeavor. In all the various functions of spirit- 
man's organism we see the working of need, want, and 
desire, which are responded to by sentient organisms that 



The Designer and Its Phenomena 107 

maintain and operate the various parts and organs of the 
body in co-ordination with the mind. 

Chemists have found that spirit-man's body is eighty 
per cent, water (H 2 0) ; hence a body weighing one 
hundred pounds has twenty pounds of non-liquid material. 
But even the solids of the body may be converted into 
gases, when no longer serving the purposes of the inhabit- 
ing being. Scientists can resolve all substances into what 
they call the gaseous state, but they are helpless to proceed 
any further in their investigations. The word gas may 
be defined as spirit. Breath, spirit, and gas are essentially 
one and the same thing. 

It is strange that the microscope is not more helpful 
to the physical scientist. Possibly it may come to be 
of greater service when his mind perceives what to look 
for, as well as what further to expect in his scientific 
investigations. To the psychic what is called gas, or 
ether, is not so attenuated or rarefied a natural substance 
as one would suppose. In fact the so-called solids and 
gases are not unlike ether in their form of organization, 
and the constitution and arrangement of matter on the 
two distinct planes of manifestation are in many respects 
identical. 

The undeveloped mind and physical senses of spirit- 
man and the dull intelligence and sensibilities of an 
excarnate being of no great spiritual development natu- 
rally require conditions of environment that are in many 
particulars similar. Nature does not thrust her wards 
into strange, incompatible, or uncongenial surroundings; 
therefore the two psychophysical conditions are essentially 
the same in illustrating her effort to unfold the two 
orders of mind by placing them in an appropriate environ- 
ment. Both spirit-man and excarnate beings are encom- 
passed by myriads of living creatures that exist and func- 



108 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

tion alike on the terrestrial plane and in the ovate zone 
of the earth's extension and present somewhat similar 
phenomena on each. 

The incarnate personality called man is only the instru- 
ment of a spirit. The organ we call the brain does not 
think, any more than do the arms or the legs or any 
other parts of the body. The corporeal organism is only 
a vegetable compound possessing a vegetable conscious- 
ness. It is made up of billions of sentient entities, some 
exceedingly minute and others much larger, but all aggre- 
gated into colonies for special purposes and functions. 
There are many minds that dwell in the structure of 
the human body, but have not evolved above the vegetable 
consciousness, so that we have presented to us in some 
cases a combination of vegetable and animal life. 

The psychophysical being wearing the human mask 
and possessing only a vegetable and animal conscious- 
ness should be aroused by any suitable expedient from 
the Lethe of past ages and led to perceive that it is his 
duty to think seriously and assiduously, so that he may 
come to know himself. Thus he will begin to realize 
his future possibilities through normal creative thinking 
that is wholly directed toward one object, mind-unfold- 
ment, which is followed by unfoldment of the spirit 
senses. 

When immortal mind dominates a spirit-man's con- 
duct, he has become a living soul and perceives the phe- 
nomena of excarnate spirit as clearly as those of the 
incarnate phase of life about him. He thus gains cosmic 
consciousness and gradually unfolds toward the universal 
consciousness; for the soul, through its great perceptive 
ability, is able, when developed, to dominate its tem- 
porary sentient instrument. It is then that the body 
becomes a normal healthy organism, serving the soul as 



The Designer and Its Phenomena 109 

a precious and useful instrument until its services are no 
longer required. 

The Great Teacher demonstrated the power of the soul 
over spirit-man's embodiment, or mask, when he healed 
the sick, cast out evil spirits, and raised the dead; and 
other incidents are recorded that proved his power over 
environment. Yet he preached to a soulless race of 
human beings who could not understand him. His 
disciples can do much more in an age in which there 
are numerous awakened souls among mankind, and in 
which the destructive forces are less dominant than in 
any past generation. But it is no small task for the 
soul of spirit-man to blast through the steel and rocks 
of ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice that have imprisoned 
the minds of practically all mankind since Nature's Cos- 
mic School cast them upon the terrestrial ovate plane of 
existence. 

The awakened souls of this generation are becoming, 
individually and collectively, more efficient and are demon- 
strating more and more the limitless possibilities of their 
creative power in a land where liberty of thought and 
action is more secure than it has been at any time in the 
history of the human race. 

Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, an enlightened teacher, 
did noble work in her effort to arouse mankind to a 
realization of the creative power of the immortal soul, 
and, despite the defects and shortcomings of the system 
she developed, it is gratifying to realize that it has made 
many persons conscious of their birthright and enabled 
them to demonstrate the inherent power of mind. She 
was a pioneer demonstrator of the latent powers of the 
soul; and what man has attained in this direction is but 
a faint foreshadowing of what is to come when the 
walls of ignorance, bigotry, and prejudice give way at 



no Man: Whence and Whither ? 

last, and the coming of the millennium of intellectual 
freedom brings a spiritual consciousness to a world of 
awakened and enlightened beings. 

It required the vigilant and heroic efforts of a daunt- 
less soul, in the person of the late Colonel Theodore 
Roosevelt, to awaken our national consciousness to the 
international needs, wants, and desires of mankind. 
When a national soul can fully perceive its international 
duties, it has developed into a cosmic soul, for the highest 
and best good of the human race. When the cosmic 
soul is sufficiently evolved, it will perceive and realize 
that there is an ovate excarnate world that environs us, 
inhabited by excarnate beings who are intensely inter- 
ested in all the affairs of their incarnate brethren. 

When spirit-man develops a larger and better acquaint- 
ance with his masked comrades of the earth, and under- 
stands his divine duty toward them, he will find it a 
grander and nobler world to live in. When the minds 
of mortals are sufficiently evolved to know that there 
are excarnate beings who also inhabit the earth, and who 
enter into all the functions of the social fabric of its 
masked people, they will have awakened to a new and 
larger sense of their duties, responsibilities, and obliga- 
tions to both their incarnate and excarnate fellow-beings. 

All that the soul perceives, if heeded, cultivated, and 
energized long enough, will become manifest and demon- 
strated in due time. The psychic person, like the physicist, 
demands proof or demonstration before being convinced, 
and, if he be patient, this will be furnished in abundance 
as the new perceptive powers of the soul are opened. 
The practical evidence daily afforded to a well-developed 
psychic would, if recorded in writing, suffice to make a 
volume of considerable size. 

We must remember that the soul gains very rapidly 



The Designer and Its Phenomena 1 1 1 

in its unfoldment when intense desire to learn more is 
uppermost in its thoughts. One has no time for trivial 
or trifling things that bother a small mind and hold it 
a vassal ; one finds all hindrances disappearing when there 
is an untrammeled vision from the soul; one cannot but 
forge on, when so much wealth of knowledge is every- 
where at hand; one is filled with delight, gladness, and 
joy at the ease with which the bounty of Nature can be 
appropriated; one need not carry any outworn mental 
luggage into the realms of Nature ; one realizes that what 
the unsullied soul perceives is good, noble, and divine, 
and is never lost ; one learns not to place limitations on 
the soul's perceptive power by blind acceptance of authors 
ancient or modern; if one's soul is free, one loses all 
fear of mental or bodily danger, for one who is full of 
fear is still nursing his vegetable, animal, and pseudo- 
religious consciousness; one whose soul's perception is 
adequate sees all things in Nature in their proper places 
and rates them at their true value; one who possesses an 
evolved soul sees no evil in any of the phenomena of 
Nature and perceives only divine law working out the 
normal course of mind-unfoldment in Nature's Cosmic 
School; one realizes that the whole purpose of Nature 
is to compel its wards to think much and hard, whether 
in suffering or in gladness ; one knows that the good and 
the true are eternal, and that suffices. 



CHAPTER XIII 

man's indecision as to the purpose of existence 

The supreme and continuous effort of Nature has 
been (and still is) to compel man to think normally, 
reflect diligently, reason from cause to effect intelligently, 
and comprehend the natural laws of his being. He 
should, in consequence of such comprehension, realize the 
importance of eliminating his animal nature as rapidly 
as possible, despite the fact that this progressive step is 
a very difficult and wearisome task. 

Men shrink from the effort of thought required for 
the understanding of the higher and lower aspects of 
their natures, and thus they remain indifferent through- 
out life, without the will to suppress or entirely eliminate 
their animal characteristics. Orthodox believers are told 
to have faith in God, which will in some mysterious 
fashion obviate the necessity of mental labor and the 
acquirement of knowledge here. Simply through faith, 
they are solemnly assured, they will be transported, as 
they are, into heaven and into the presence of an om- 
niscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent Being. That would 
indeed be an astonishingly swift transformation from a 
state of gross ignorance to one of all knowledge and 
wisdom. Why, then, have Mother Earth and Father 
Time spent two hundred million or more years to evolve 
the race into the state of existence in which it finds 
itself at the present time? 

Man's dual characteristics have been well expressed by 
Alexander Pope in the following lines: 

112 



Man's Indecision as to the Purpose of Existence 113 

"Placed on this isthmus of a middle state — 
A being darkly wise and rudely great, 
With too much knowledge for the sceptic's side, 
With too much weakness for the stoic's pride — 
He hangs between ; in doubt to act or rest ; 
In doubt to deem himself a god or beast ; 
In doubt his mind or body to prefer ; 
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err ; 
Alike in ignorance, his reason such, 
Whether he think too little or too much ; 
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused ; 
Still by himself abused or disabused ; 
Created half to rise and half to fall ; 
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all ; 
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled — 
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!" 

Pope's accurate word-picture of the human mind, so 
full of indecision and of vacillating attitudes, only cor- 
roborates the assertion that man is not able to discern 
the purpose of his existence or his function in Nature. 
When the true nature of his inevitable destiny is made 
clear to him, he will readily accept the responsibility and 
normally fulfil his duty in life. Not knowing it, he now 
fritters away his spare time in playing various indoor and 
outdoor games, attending places of amusement, and read- 
ing story-books to divert himself; he is in no wise 
adequately devoted to vocational interests that should be 
all-engrossing. 

Man today finds no time to study and become 
acquainted with his innate self, nor does he give heed 
to the higher and nobler needs, wants, and desires of his 
nature. To know himself and evolve his diviner attri- 
butes of being he must learn the value of solitude, con- 
centration, introspection, and meditation, and thereby 
gain dominion over his lower nature and over all that 

8 



H4 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

has become useless or a hindrance to the further unfold- 
ment of his innate divine creative power. As his mental 
unfoldment progresses, newer and better aspirations will 
arise in his mind, and these should be given the fullest 
measure of attention each and every day, with a resolve 
to carry them out persistently both in thought and in 
conduct. 

The simple fact that spirit-man wishes, hopes, prays, 
and longs for something better than his present condition 
of mind and body affords him can be traced to prompt- 
ings within his own psychophysical organism. He hun- 
gers and thirsts for what he already innately possesses, 
and all he needs to do is to utter the creative word and 
make it manifest. As this desire grows stronger within 
the mind, man as an intellectual being becomes more 
instinctive, intuitive, and impressionable, and the organs 
of perception become more highly tuned and unfolded. 

Once the soul of spirit-man is aroused and awakened 
from its chronic state of inertia, indolence, and indecision 
regarding the proper manner of working out its destiny, 
it becomes a living, functioning entity fitted to begin to 
think normally and to manifest the potential attributes 
of its nature. What the mind of man has instinctively 
felt, pondered, and reasoned out to a definite conclusion 
— what has become logically clear to him — will, if con- 
stantly energized, develop his intuition and mental per- 
ception to a state in which the psychic senses become 
opened. And this marks a very important epoch in his 
evolution. 

Man's animal senses have afforded him information 
for the past hundred thousand or more years, and they 
are the only source of knowledge for the vast majority 
of mankind today. Intelligent people realize the deploy 
ably slow progress that civilization has consequently made 



Mans Indecision as to the Purpose of Existence 115 

up to the present time. But as soon as man is made 
aware that additional avenues of information, hitherto 
unused and unknown, are at his command, a most sig- 
nificant era opens up to him, and he can make rapid 
strides by the use of his new means of gaining expe- 
rience, knowledge, and wisdom, which in turn will further 
unfold the psychic powers of his soul. The divine prin- 
ciple innate in the being incarnated in the human per- 
sonality could not be so content and so inactive as to 
remain forever dependent on the animal senses as avenues 
of information. They were only to serve for a time in 
the evolution of man's intellect until his development 
could reach a stage in which the psychic powers are un- 
folded and another objective world is presented for his 
contemplation. 

The state of the human mind that Pope so vividly 
described will pass away when our psychic senses are 
able to discern the excarnate as well as the incarnate 
phenomena of life. Thus the way will be prepared for 
further normal, rational, positive demonstrations to those 
who can read the open book of Nature. The higher as 
well as the lower aspect of their being then reveals itself 
to their senses, and it becomes clear how to eliminate 
the latter and evolve the former. There will be no lack 
of assistance in their endeavor to clean and purify the 
temple of the human soul, so that grander and more 
beautiful thoughts may be entertained and the further 
unfoldment of the soul fostered. 

Is it not in the highest degree rational for the embryo 
god to evolve his innate attributes of mind by continuous 
creative effort, and thus to rise through the lower con- 
scious planes or domains of Nature until, in consequence 
of unremitting thought and labor, he attains an exalted 
plane of consciousness, gaining experience, knowledge, 



Ii6 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

and wisdom, and finally entering heaven and dwelling in 
the presence of an omniscient, omnipotent, and omni- 
present Being? 

Besides the time consumed in the normal manual labor 
that is essential for the mind and body of spirit-man, 
several hours each day should be set apart for normal 
creative unfoldment of the higher mental attributes. This 
unfoldment can only be gained by minute introspective 
study of one's self, and by thorough and consistent 
reasoning from cause to effect, thus formulating a line 
of thought and action that will foster the desired develop- 
ment most effectively. 

Man is prone to assume a great number of cares that 
absorb most of his time and yet produce nothing that 
will be of value to him in the excarnate world. Man's 
only care, and the only riches he ought to seek, should 
be a fuller development of soul and mind, which will 
serve him both here and hereafter. Those who are com- 
petent might well formulate grades of study for the 
scientific unfoldment of the innate powers of the mind; 
and if they could secure widespread (and ultimately 
universal) adoption of the plan of orderly study thus 
formulated, we might look forward to a truly pro- 
gressive generation of people. 

The various departments of the Government should 
as far as possible encourage our citizens to engage in 
scientific study of man's existence and purpose in Nature 
during his sojourn on this conscious plane of action, for 
each generation becomes absorbed in turn in the mechani- 
cal and material development of the country, thus divert- 
ing its attention from the things that are really worth 
while. The wealth of a country should be estimated by 
the knowledge and spiritual development of its citizens, 
and not by its aggregation of money and material 



Man's Indecision as to the Purpose of Existence 117 

resources, nor by its display of pomp and luxury, splendor 
and extravagance. 

Ninety-nine per cent, of the people of most countries 
are relatively poor, and many of them are denied even 
the ordinary comforts of life. Moreover, in many cases 
they are actually unable to take care of their health, and 
have no chance to have their seemingly inevitable diseases 
properly treated. 

Those who presume to take charge of the various 
departments and bureaus of the Government should be 
men and women whose minds have evolved above the 
plane of the animal and Mammon consciousness, and 
who possess a broad and clear vision regarding the attain- 
ment of the greatest good of the greatest number, both 
here and hereafter. Through the strenuous efforts of 
one of our eminent leaders, Theodore Roosevelt, who 
was for many years a commanding figure in the nation 
and even in the world, and who believed in the policy 
of aggressiveness in behalf of the right and the good, 
the necessity of awakening a national consciousness has 
been clearly recognized. But this, to be permanent, must 
be based upon a moral and spiritual consciousness in the 
breasts of our citizenship. 

If the governing class does not possess a godlike con- 
sciousness, and, while standing at the head of public 
affairs, set a noble example, what can be expected of 
the heterogeneous aggregate that constitutes the general 
population? What type of moral and spiritual growth, 
with a continuance of the present methods of education, 
science and religion, will the governing class of the 
Union exhibit? What kind of example are they going 
to set their fellow-citizens, to help them to become a 
homogeneous people of a really noble type? If the good, 
the noble, and the true — the expression of the diviner 



n8 



Man: Whence and Whither? 



part of human nature — are always exemplified in the 
action of the popular leaders and of those in high position, 
the masses will perceive it and act in consonance there- 
with. 

The ambition of the Federal Government must be 
turned from the development of purely external resources 
and the accumulation of national wealth to the far more 
worthy and valuable objective of fostering the moral and 
spiritual progress of its citizenry from year to year and 
from generation to generation. It should be able to 
point with justifiable pride to the sterling qualities of 
its people, and, before all the nations of the earth, pro- 
claim: "These are my jewels!" 



CHAPTER XIV 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 



In the psychophysical functions of the human mind 
and body we can always trace the workings of natural 
law and the unvarying operation of the principle of 
cause and effect. When the mind and its organism have 
evolved to a state of consciousness in which instinct and 
impressibility are largely developed and knowledge can 
be gained through intuition, this stage is characterized 
by belief and faith. Instinctive and intuitive reasoning 
develops intellect, thus fortifying belief and faith in 
conceptions that have been gained. When man begins 
instinctively and intuitively to perceive, reason, and reflect 
upon personalities that are vague, intangible, inaudible, 
and invisible, he soon comes to regard them as in some 
way able to exert an influence on himself. 

Logical, instinctive, and intuitive reasoning increases 
knowledge and consequently promotes unf oldment of the 
mind, and in time this mental development brings about 
activity of the psychic powers, so that what was previously 
merely a subjective impression becomes cognized as an 
objective reality. Many persons possess a normal, open- 
minded, instinctive, and intuitive intelligence, while others 
become obsessed with a chimerical idea and cease to 
think, in consequence of which no further development 
of the mind takes place. 

One who instinctively feels and intuitively apprehends 
that he is environed by invisible intelligences, and that 

119 



120 Man: Whence and Whither? 

he will continue to exist after the death of his mortal 
instrument, has made no mistake in his belief or faith, 
for both are in harmony with well-established facts. He 
has replaced a vague belief in mysterious forces operat- 
ing upon him in some inscrutable way with faith in the 
normal and inevitable operation of certain higher natural 
laws. 

These mental operations seemed new and strange to 
him when compared with the functioning of his animal 
mind and its limited senses. He found himself quite at 
a loss to know how to adjust his belief and faith to the 
conditions of his present existence. His intuitive intelli- 
gence logically confronted him with two aspects of his 
being, namely, his lower and his higher nature. The 
concept of right and wrong gave him much concern. 

The student of mathematics has to deal with two 
aspects of his own nature: initial ignorance and subse- 
quent knowledge of the subject. He is intuitively aware 
that one aspect of his mind is good and the other bad; 
in fact he may use some "cuss words" to arouse the 
latter impulse of his nature to greater intensity of action. 
The same law of efficiency and inefficiency holds good 
in the study of psychonomy and psychogeny, or of any 
other natural science essential for the larger develop- 
ment of the mind. 

Man's lower instincts and intuitive intelligence had 
tangible bases of inspiration, which he cognized through 
the evidence furnished by his animal senses for the 
purpose of satisfying his needs, wants, and desires. Yet 
the higher aspects of his nature gave him much con- 
cern, and, since he was ignorant of the possibility of 
any further unfoldment of his mind, he naturally at- 
tributed the two diverging, or opposite, states of mind 
to external personalities that he knew nothing about. In 



Faith and Knowledge 121 

a very consistent manner he ascribed the good aspects 
of his mind to one personality and the evil to another. 
And in this conscious state of unfoldment he concluded 
that he was mostly evil in his tendencies and only rarely 
good. It seemed logical to him that he must assuage 
the wrath of the Jealous One that he might attain eternal 
bliss, not to mention deliverance from earthly affliction. 
The evil one he conceived to be a jolly, worldly fellow 
who roamed up and down the earth having a good time. 
The good personality he placed in a far-off heaven and 
thought it necessary to propitiate him constantly with 
worship. Positive belief and faith in both personalities 
were manifested, and both were feared — this being a very 
natural operation of the mind under the circumstances. 

It thus came about that man tried to assuage the 
anger of the personality representing one aspect of his 
nature and to flee from the other, which seemingly per- 
sisted in accompanying him through this "vale of tears 
and sighs" here below. Most people are so intensely 
devoted to the antithetical personalities that represent the 
two aspects of their own nature that they vehemently 
repudiate the existence of any others, such as ghosts, 
hobgoblins, angels, gods, and goddesses, which they are 
told are everywhere about them. 

The allegory about Lucifer and his angels and their 
compulsory emigration to this earth has been interpreted 
literally and taken seriously by dogmatic-minded people, 
and has done much to arrest human development on this 
planet hitherto. We know that the spirits that form the 
integral parts of this incarnate earth came from some- 
where. Call the place of their previous existence Heaven, 
or the Garden of Eden, if you like. And what a "hell" 
of a time they have had in Nature's Cosmic School up 
to the present time! Thus the history of spirit-man 



122 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

includes, we may say, both Heaven and its infernal 
antithesis ! 

Many have not enjoyed the company of the tutor 
under whose guidance they have been while in the Cosmic 
School. They do not realize that incarnate and excar- 
nate beings are on an excursion into Nature's newer 
realms of mind in order to gain experience, knowledge, 
and wisdom, and that the divine power that is inherent 
in each mind is guiding, directing, and unfolding its 
creative potency, gradually but diligently eliminating the 
lower aspect of its nature, in order that better, larger, 
nobler, and more nearly divine attainments may be realized 
through increased mental efficiency. 

Human progress comes through untrammeled instinc- 
tive and intuitive mind-action, corresponding to further 
needs, wants, and desires, which are thus seriously pon- 
dered. And what the mind instinctively feels and intui- 
tively apprehends, as already pointed out, becomes an 
objective reality to the mind through its developed senses. 

Natural religious perceptions conform to the operations 
of natural law; therefore no restrictions should be placed 
upon the orderly unfoldment of human faculties in the 
direction of greater expression of the mind's innate poten- 
tial creative power. It is through the operation of a 
natural law of mental action that spirit-man develops 
psychic faculties, which are an inevitable and most essen- 
tial phase of the soul's progress. 

Who but a myth-believing and dogmatic-minded per- 
son would condemn this very significant stage in the 
soul's unfoldment? What was once merely instinctive 
or intuitive knowledge, and a manifestation of belief and 
faith, has now become a fact scientifically demonstrated 
to those who possess sufficient psychic capacity to cog- 
nize it. 



Faith and Knowledge 123 

The average material scientist is not aware that a 
psychic obtains positive, objective demonstrations in his 
research into the phenomena of Nature, just as he him- 
self does when investigating the phenomena of incarnate 
existence with the aid of chemical analysis or the micro- 
scope and other delicate instruments. Each of these 
investigators should respect and value the work of the 
other, for both are necessary to progress in scientific 
knowledge regarding the environment of spirit-man and 
his relation thereto. 

Normal, rational, instinctive mental concepts, after due 
reflection, engender belief and faith in ideas that have 
been accumulated; and these concepts, if not diverted or 
perverted, must sooner or later come into the field of 
consciousness as the mind unfolds, and there take their 
place beside its demonstrated, objective knowledge. A 
progressive mind need not waste time in analyzing each 
individual fact in Nature as it is objectively presented; 
on the other hand, it may continue to accumulate facts 
psychically, and in due time they will assemble them- 
selves in their proper order and mutual relationship in 
the observing mind. 

A store of newly-collected thoughts, or concepts, of 
a mind is like a field sown with seeds that must have 
time to germinate and grow. It needs, therefore, much 
care and cultivation, and the mental soil should be 
enriched by solitude, reflection, introspection, meditation, 
and silence, until the crop of seed-thoughts is fully grown 
and the fruit matured and ripened. 

Most of the self-appointed preachers and teachers of 
mankind are not content to wait many years to store 
their minds with ideas until they "hold like rich garners 
the full-ripened grain." They rather incline to pluck 
out ruthlessly the first sprouting idea that they discern, 



124 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

neglecting all the rest (of which it is but the earnest 
and the promise), and they then set forth to promulgate 
it as the sole means of mankind's redemption from paucity 
of ideas and poverty of soul. 



CHAPTER XV 

EVOLVING A PRACTICAL RELIGION 

The paramount question that should concern spirit- 
man today is how normally to unfold the innate potencies 
of his creative mind. He should no longer remain con- 
tent with the information derived through his animal 
senses, but rather give serious attention to the unfold- 
ment of the inherent powers of his immortal soul. When 
these are sufficiently developed, greater command over 
the body is gained and the normal use of the psychic 
senses is achieved: the excarnate phenomena of life that 
environ mankind may then be seen, heard, felt, smelled, 
and tasted. 

Some of earth's inhabitants wearing the human mask 
are in a savage state of existence, and thus possess only 
a wild-animal consciousness. Others are tamed, like our 
domestic animals, and consequently manifest a more 
docile consciousness, such as that of the dog, the ox, or 
the horse. Many others have grown through instinctive 
intelligence to a state of mental development that is half 
animal and half human, and these exhibit a Satanic con- 
sciousness. They are seemingly not concerned about that 
which lies beyond the sphere of their undeveloped minds 
and dormant senses, and, like animals, have no religious 
consciousness. A considerable number during their whole 
lives, and many others after forty years of age, exist 
in a vegetating — almost vegetable — state of consciousness 
as a result of mental inertia. 

125 



126 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

Perhaps one-fifth of mankind are sufficiently unfolded 
mentally to be concerned with that which lies beyond 
their own capacity to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste. 
They are conscious of the nearness of an indefinable, 
intangible, inaudible, and invisible spirit-intelligence, 
which they regard as operative upon them. In this 
limited unfoldment of mind they have arrived at what 
may be called a religious state of consciousness. This 
state is brought about through the development of intui- 
tion, impressibility, and mental sensitiveness, as well as 
of a certain physical receptivity. While this affords a 
slight conception of what environs them, they should not 
stop at this stage of unfoldment of their minds and 
bodies, for it is but a single step above the animal con- 
sciousness. 

Those who have evolved to this state of religious 
consciousness conceive of two personalities — one repre- 
senting the higher and the other the lower aspect of 
their nature, as explained in detail in the preceding chap- 
ter. Their implicit belief and faith in these personalities 
— which are products of a very natural conception of 
the psychophysical law governing their organisms — 
develop a complacency and self-sufficiency of mind that 
naturally inhibit any further creative thought and con- 
sequently any further unfoldment of their mental powers. 
Their dogmatic belief has excluded from their minds all 
knowledge of the varied spirit phenomena that environ 
them and operate upon them, and that could be intelligible 
and even audible and visible to them if their minds were 
open. 

The transformation of mind and body should be con- 
tinued through the constant process of thought in the 
direction of greater realization of the higher needs, wants, 
and desires, for this realization will be followed by greater 



Evolving a Practical Religion 127 

unfoldment of the immortal soul and its enlarged means 
of perception. 

Mankind, being accustomed to seeing, hearing, feel- 
ing, smelling, and tasting, and also to reasoning as well 
as possible from cause to effect, naturally cultivated a 
more or less logical intelligence. The same is true of 
all living things in Nature below the conscious plane of 
spirit-man. It is but natural and right that man should 
apply his instinctive and intuitive intelligence and the 
fruit of his mental training to thoughts regarding mat- 
ters that concern him but that have not yet been made 
manifest through his senses. What the mind has well 
assimilated and comprehended is made manifest by the 
unfoldment of its psychic power. This epoch in the 
evolution of the mind marks the birth of a spiritual 
consciousness. 

An incarnate being that has gained command over 
the immortal senses, and can observe the excarnate phe- 
nomena of Nature as well as the incarnate ones, may 
continue to apply his accustomed intelligence and logical 
attributes of mind in the consideration of the phenomena 
observed through his psychic attainments. Herbert 
Spencer said: "To the mass of people nothing is so 
costly as thought. The fact that, taking the world over, 
ninety-nine people out of a hundred accept the creed to 
which they were born exemplifies their mental attitude 
toward things at large." 

Self-complacency and self -sufficiency gained through 
belief and faith in two antithetical personalities supposed 
to affect our spiritual destiny can play no part in the 
future responsibilities and duties to one's self and to 
others of those whose psychic powers are developed. So 
long as the animal mind and its dull physical senses 
dominated the incarnate personality called man, little or 



128 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

no progress was made toward the satisfactory under- 
standing and comprehension of his higher nature. But 
when the soul through "great travail" gained control of 
its immortal senses, a new world was revealed to man- 
kind, and the lower and the higher aspects of his nature 
were made plain to him. 

Men of our day might as well make up their minds 
to work normally and thus pay their way through each 
successive heaven that their innate divine creative power 
opens up to their psychic senses. A good and noble soul 
loves to work out its own destiny — a process that is 
always accompanied with pleasure, happiness, and joy. 
One whose soul knows no fear and no defeat; whose 
spirit works out its innate tendencies without pomp or 
pride; who is free from prejudice and hatred; whose 
soul perceives Nature as an open book; who places no 
limitations on his own power; whose soul knows how 
to regard the petty things of life and sees God's handi- 
work in all the phenomena of Nature; whose soul con- 
tinues to yearn for a larger perception of Nature, and 
constantly strives to make a heaven on earth — such a 
one is working out his destiny nobly and developing his 
spiritual consciousness in all its completeness. 

God's planetary chariot has been spinning around for 
two hundred million or more years in the effort to evolve 
a being incarnated in a personality called man to a state 
of unfoldment in which the soul could use its mortal 
instrument and become acquainted with the excarnate 
phenomena of life. Such a God-given possibility has 
only dawned upon the present generation of men, but 
it is destined to become an accepted fact to most of our 
race in perhaps another five hundred years. 

When the psychic senses of spirit-man are opened, 
and the higher as well as the lower aspects of his nature 



Evolving a Practical Religion 129 

come to be an open book to him — then, even if he heeds 
the responsibility and takes it seriously, he has only 
begun to work out his destiny. The divine power innate 
in the mind of an incarnate being whose replica is in 
the image of God has then produced an awakened soul, 
and it should appreciate the advantage it possesses in 
being able to see, hear, feel, smell, and taste the beauty 
and grandeur of the "invisible" world opened up through 
the spirit senses. An intelligent and logical mind loves 
to observe all the various phenomena of Nature and to 
appropriate and apply the practical lessons that may be 
derived therefrom. In this way its possessor is constantly 
afforded a fresh mental stimulus or incentive to continue 
his progress at as rapid a rate as possible. 

When one has discovered the normal way of work- 
ing out one's destiny through the acquisition of expe- 
rience, knowledge, and wisdom, it is well worth diligent 
and continuous effort to forge one's way constantly 
ahead to newer and higher conscious planes of existence. 
St. Paul said in effect that the fruit of the spirit is love, 
joy, peace, kindness, long-suffering, goodness, faithful- 
ness, meekness, and self-control. And to this list we 
might add uninterrupted progress in realizing greater 
mind-attainments. The idea that one must be "long- 
suffering" in order to be good is nonsensical. There is 
no suffering or sacrifice in getting rid of what is useless 
and constitutes a hindrance to one's progressive unfold- 
ment. 

All good and noble attributes of an awakened soul 
can be manifested and demonstrated here and now, with- 
out waiting for a special opportunity in some far-off 
heaven to which one is supposed to be transported after 
death. Spirit-man must learn that he is now in the kind 
of heaven he has created for himself. And, if he will 



130 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

constantly heed the admonitions of his soul, he can 
steadily make his heaven larger and better as he attains 
successively higher grades or states of consciousness. 

Those who do not turn back or falter in working out 
their spiritual destiny will eventually gain a godlike con- 
sciousness, realizing a greater and higher illumination of 
soul — thus making possible increased love and apprecia- 
tion of Nature's wonderful laws. Should they in an 
unguarded moment attempt to utter a wrong or a harm- 
ful statement, their tongues would cleave to the roofs 
of their mouths. And if they should try to commit 
a wrongful act, it would confront them at once with a 
shocking realization of its actual iniquity. 

As the lower manifestations of an incarnate or excar- 
nate being's nature are gradually eliminated, and the 
higher aspect of his nature continues to be evolved, he 
reaches an ever higher and purer plane of consciousness 
— where the soul can manifest in its fulness and com- 
pleteness a God-consciousness that knows no evil. Then 
he may be classed with those called the pure in spirit. 
The evolved and emancipated being, through the unfold- 
ment of the inherent creative power of its mind, has 
worked its way up through all the lower conscious 
domains of Nature and attained oneness with the Father. 

How much have religionists improved in their con- 
ceptions of God since the time of Pythagoras, the sage 
of Samos, who died in 497 B.C.? Pythagoras is reported 
to have described Deity in the following words : 

God is neither the object of sense nor subject to passion, 
but invisible, only intelligible, and supremely intelligent. In 
his body he is like the light, and in his soul he resembles truth. 
He is the universal spirit that pervades and diffuses itself 
over all nature. All beings receive their life from him. There 
is but one only God, who is not, as some are apt to imagine, 



Evolving a Practical Religion 131 

seated above the world beyond the orb of the universe; but 
being himself all in all, he sees all the beings that fill his im- 
mensity, the only principle, the light of heaven, the Father 
of all. He produces everything ; he orders and disposes every- 
thing ; he is the reason, the life, and the motion of all beings. 



CHAPTER XVI 



THOUGHT STIMULI 



Every mind, however undeveloped, that wears the 
mask called man should have need, want, and desire for 
fresh, wholesome mental food, which it can so digest and 
assimilate as to give the mind renewed strength and added 
experience and enlarge its store of knowledge. The mind 
must, however, be entirely free to entertain any idea, 
thought, or theme without prejudice. Those who are 
really alert can collect an abundance of ideas, and they 
will be too busy investigating these and too highly enter- 
tained to have time or room for bias.- Small, narrow, 
and undeveloped minds are necessarily biased owing to 
their constitutional limitations. 

If a person can begin early in life with a normal store 
of enduring ideas, they will multiply and enlarge con- 
tinually as the mind evolves to higher and larger planes 
of consciousness. Others may have to eliminate much 
useless and effete mental stuff as fast as possible, to make 
room for something nobler and better that will stand 
the test of logical thinking for all time. 

Occasional thinking is of no avail. Wishing, longing, 
hoping, and praying do not constitute thinking. They 
get one nowhere, for instance, in the study of mathe- 
matics or of the operation of natural laws. The frequent 
utterance of mantras, affirmations, or invocations to some 
deity with the lips, coupled with the belief that such 'vain 
repetitions" constitute thought and will change destiny, 

132 



Thought Stimuli 133 

is merely a mental self-stultifying process that whiles 
away the time but accomplishes nothing. 

Our destiny is determined by our constantly multiply- 
ing ideas, thoughts, experiences, and knowledge, which 
keep the creative potency of the soul ever aflame and 
active on its exploring excursion into the higher and 
more refined realms of Nature. In all the operations of 
Nature mind activity is essential to achievement; other- 
wise inertia, stagnation, and disintegration prevail, as can 
be observed in all the domains of materiality. 

The most useful and practical book for you to study 
is the one you have written yourself — a volume to which 
additional chapters are constantly being appended by your 
daily life. It is always with you, day and night, and in 
its pages you will find the following questions you have 
so often asked yourself in one way or another. They 
may have served as texts for the introspective sermons 
you have preached and the self-admonitions you have 
applied. If you cannot find and understand yourself, 
you will not become acquainted with the god-power innate 
in your being. Hence it was that the ancient Greeks, 
and the medieval Rosicrucians after them, uttered the 
solemn charge to their aspirants or neophytes, "Know 
thyself!"— 

"What evidence 01 serious thinking can be read or 
observed in my self-recorded pages called individuality, 
personality, and intelligence? Do I think at all? Can I 
think about one subject for two minutes steadily, with- 
out allowing my thoughts to wander? Have I ever had 
an original thought? Do I really think, or do I only 
think that I think? Is it wise to let any one think for 
me? Am I a nonentity? Is my mind growing? Is 
my soul awakened? If not, how can I awaken it? 

"Am I aware that the mind, if not used, becomes atro- 



134 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

phied and useless just as do the unexercised physical 
organs? Am I aware that my belief and faith in my- 
self, backed by efficiency of thought and labor, can be 
made an objective fact through my senses? Are belief 
and faith in myself the final effort in solving a mathe- 
matical or any other problem in Nature? Has it ever 
occurred to me that knowledge is gained only by the 
daily observation and demonstration of facts? Do I 
know that both rational and irrational thoughts are exter- 
nalized in my individuality, personality, and environment ? 
Am I aware that a person who has attained or developed 
psychic ability has an abundance of evidence for what 
he knows? Am I aware that the minds of those who 
do not think and of those who cease to think revert back 
to lower planes or types of consciousness? Do I realize 
that the brain of the organism called man does not think? 
Do I know that the brain is only the temporary instru- 
ment of an immortal mind, as are the arms, hands, legs, 
and other parts of the physical body? 

"Do I make a distinction between my immortal spirit 
and its mask, which is but a temporary organism giving 
it power of receptivity and expression on this mundane 
plane? Do I make an hourly inventory of my stock of 
good and bad creations ? Have I any means of eliminat- 
ing the bad that is in me and replacing it by something 
better? Do I understand the purpose for which I exist? 
Do I get any intelligent answers to my questions? Do I 
find myself in a rut? \m I endeavoring to be of some 
use in the world ? Do I really desire to unfold the limit- 
less attributes of my mind? 

"Do I find myself a mental coward? Am I afraid of 
what are called ghosts and hobgoblins? Do I know 
whether a resolve is worth anything to me? Do I know 
that I can make good every resolve I make — that I create 



Thought Stimuli 135 

my own hell or heaven ? Do I know that I cannot serve 
right and wrong at the same time, and do I realize the 
dire consequences that attend such contradictory creative 
efforts? Do I know that true mental freedom can come 
only from thinking, saying, and doing what is good, 
noble, and divine?" 

Such are some of the questions that you will find in 
the various chapters of the book of life you are writing 
day by day. 

The crowning glory of our existence is to possess the 
ability and the freedom to think normally. No place 
would be a heaven if it precluded your planning for its 
further improvement. Well has Milton expressed the 
power of thought in his famous and oft-quoted lines : 

The mind is its own place, and in itself 

Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 

It is a glorious acquirement and privilege to be able 
to see and to comprehend the beauty and immensity of 
Nature, which reveals something interesting and inspir- 
ing on every hand. Nature is ever a source of delight, 
and there is a constant stimulus in the contemplation of 
her wonders. The rapture arising from mere physical 
observation of the material universe is thus most enjoy- 
able, but the ecstasy resulting from sight of Nature's 
phenomena with unlimited psychic vision is incomparable 
and fills the soul with boundless thrills of joy. Great 
is the happiness springing *from untrammeled vision — 
from the soul's ability calmly to observe the varied phe- 
nomena of Nature and to realize that everything needful 
or desirable may be had if only there be the will to 
appropriate it. It is glorious to behold the mind-realms 
of the angels, gods, and goddesses, and to perceive their 



136 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

helpful messages to benighted mankind. We need a 
world of Nature-lovers, instead of a world of Nature- 
ignorers, who stupidly block the way to finer perception 
and thereby exclude from their vision all that is good, 
noble, and godlike. 

Naturally a small mind is imprisoned within its own 
limitations; it moans, worries, frets, and laments about 
its petty troubles, placing the blame everywhere but on 
itself. Persons of diminutive mental capacity continually 
contemplate the supposed everlasting wrath of a Being 
who, according to their distorted notions, will destroy 
their Satanic fellow-men together with the earth itself. 
Persons of spiritual insight, on the other hand, realize 
that it is the principle of Evil in the universe that is to 
be ultimately eradicated, so that all that remains will be 
unalloyed Good. 

For more than two hundred million years God has 
been waiting for this planet to produce a being capable 
of appreciating and enjoying the beauties lavishly be- 
stowed on his place of existence, instead of constantly 
rinding fault with it and attributing its defects to the 
power of Satan. This globular chariot we call the earth 
— this "round ball, slightly flattened at the poles" — has 
been spinning around for tens of thousands of centuries 
waiting for the being whose personality is called man 
to begin to think rationally. Rational thinking is as easy 
as breathing, if one can cast out the useless beliefs and 
other mental junk that burden the life of mankind. 

God has spread before the members of the human 
family boundless natural beauties on every hand, yet they 
know it not. They are senseless, fretful children of 
Nature who are still slaves to ignorance because they 
lack the will and the energy to think efficiently. What 
can we expect of human individuals who persist in men- 



Thought Stimuli 137 

tally feasting on the effete or waste products of other 
misguided minds? 

Ideas assimilated and incorporated into the mind 
through the various avenues of learning should consti- 
tute a mental panorama of such compelling beauty and 
vividness that they will eventually obliterate and extir- 
pate from the mind of man all that is low, mean, crude, 
vile, and selfish, and permanently enhance and embellish 
it with all that is grand, noble, uplifting, and inspiring. 
Every carping or derogatory thought, word, or idea 
regarding the nature of mankind as a whole merely helps 
to build a denser prison-wall around the mind. This has 
held mankind down in past ages, and it is doing so to- 
day. No lasting progress can take place until a radical 
change is brought about in the nature of our thought 
processes. 

The paramount question that should concern mankind 
today is how normally to unfold the innate but latent 
power of its creative mind. Those who have become 
acquainted with the two aspects of their nature — the 
lower and the higher self — will instinctively and intui- 
tively be made aware of the newer needs, wants, and 
desires arising from their higher nature. This develop- 
ment, however, requires the aid of solitude, concentra- 
tion, introspection, meditation, and contemplation, which 
are the most suitable and effective means for hastening 
the natural unfoldment of a godlike mind. 



CHAPTER XVII 

KNOWLEDGE A CHILD SHOULD ACQUIRE 

When a spirit, encased in a fleshly mask, is born into 
this incarnate world, it already possesses a previously 
acquired individuality and a distinct personality, both of 
which will be further evolved or involved according to 
the right or wrong creative use of the mind during its 
mortal life. To designate the stage of development a 
person has attained, we often describe his soul as little, 
large, great, young, or old — an old soul, for example, 
being one that has passed through a protracted process 
of unfoldment. 

The parents or guardians of a child, whether or not 
they are aware of the stage of evolution of its mind, 
should begin at an early period in its life to imbue it 
with useful thoughts and ideas that will tend to unfold 
its moral and spiritual character. The child should be 
instructed, in easy, progressive stages, as to whence it 
came, the purpose of its incarnate existence, and the 
plane to which it will proceed when that existence shall 
have terminated. As a rule such instruction ought to 
begin at about the age of four. An orderly series of 
lessons can readily be arranged, lasting ten or more 
minutes each, and leading up from the easy to the more 
difficult problems of life. In the beginning of the course 
the child had better be alone with its tutor, so that its 
attention may not be diverted from the subject during 
the lesson. 

138 



Knowledge a Child Should Acquire 139 

The lessons should be systematically arranged, begin- 
ning with the simple presentation of the operation of 
natural laws, and proceeding gradually to the more com- 
plex concepts, thus progressively unfolding the attributes 
of the mind. The ideas ought to be presented in an 
easy, familiar, conversational manner, and the aim should 
be to call out as much as possible the thoughts and ideas 
of the child on the topic of the lesson, as well as on 
the subject-matter of previous lessons. Oral instruction 
of a child or youth, or even of an adult, can be supple- 
mented by silent instruction, whether the pupil be awake 
or asleep ; in fact the lives of parents and teachers should 
be one continuous source of mental stimulus to the minds 
of all they meet or associate with, as well as to those 
who catch and interpret their ideas telepathically or who 
receive them through the medium of the written word. 

Few persons object to a child's receiving one or more 
daily lessons in physical training, or acquiring the art 
of graceful dancing, or cultivating the voice, the ear, or 
the fingers in musical education. Such training of body 
and mind is of great importance, of course, but it is far 
more essential to develop the child's understanding by 
supplying enduring thoughts and ideas for the mind to 
reflect upon and assimilate. The immortal soul is the 
generator of all bodily energy; therefore it should receive 
careful mental culture early in life, so that it may gain 
at the outset a correct conception of life and its duties. 
The brain of a child does not think, any more than do 
its feet, its hands, or even its physical senses; these are 
but instruments for the use of an immortal mind in 
coming in contact with the objective plane. You cannot 
overtax a spirit's mind, but you can overtax its imple- 
ment, the brain, just as easily as the arms or legs. 

The "child mind" has been the subject of endless 



140 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

twaddle, and the result is that millions of children, youths, 
and adults are alike destitute of any scientific or psychical 
training, whence we have a human race of more or less 
characterless nincompoops. The writer well remembers 
the rubbish incorporated as material for reading lessons 
in the First, Second, Third, and Fourth School Readers. 
All these books were uninteresting and inane, being 
quite destitute of useful ideas. As the immortal mind of 
a child or youth is open to scientific and psychic facts 
when they are simply and clearly stated, all grades of 
school readers should present interesting narratives or 
descriptions showing the operation of natural laws. Chil- 
dren are initiated at an early age into the mysteries of 
mathematics, and are expected to comprehend them as 
they advance from the easy to the more difficult prob- 
lems. Why neglect the particular branches of science 
that contribute to the building up and rounding out of 
a beautiful character, which will continue to evolve during 
its incarnate life as well as in the excarnate state that 
follows ? 

It is a crime against an immortal soul to neglect its 
daily scientific education concerning its psychophysical 
organism and its relation to its environment. It is 
equally a crime to inhibit the mind's normal creative 
unfoldment at an early age by false ideas instilled under 
the guise of religion. The study of natural science leaves 
the mind free for new discoveries and demonstrations on 
higher planes, thus leading it on to loftier perceptions 
and to an appreciation of the boundless beauty in all 
the manifestations of Nature. The aim of education 
should be to develop resourceful thinkers who can under- 
stand the why and the wherefore of things and com- 
prehend the inexorable sequence of cause and effect. It 
is time to quit teaching the youth of our country as one 



Knowledge a Child Should Acquire 141 

would teach parrots. Mere cultivation of the memory 
does not produce ability to think, and therefore it fails 
utterly to develop resourcefulness in meeting the duties 
and solving the problems of life. 

All people who think seriously must surely realize that 
ignorance and religious bigotry still have an exceedingly 
baneful effect on the entire social fabric. And these are 
rendered far more pernicious than might otherwise be 
the case by the fact that they are frequently directed and 
exploited by crafty schemers operating under the guise of 
religion for selfish and unholy ends. The true course of 
human development in accordance with the plan of 
Nature's Cosmic School lies not in bowing to convention, 
nor in bondage to priestcraft, but in the evolution of 
sterling virtues and godlike qualities through mental free- 
dom and personal experience. So long as man perpetu- 
ates an empty sacerdotalism and neglects to acquire real 
spiritual knowledge, his character must continue to be of 
the hothouse variety, lacking both the rugged strength 
and the genuine fragrance of the naturally developed 
plant. 

Mankind, though innately endowed with all the poten- 
tialities of divinity, has been and still is largely dominated 
by the superstitions of mythology and religious dogma- 
tism. The self-appointed vicegerents of God have been 
meddling in human affairs for ages, perverting the admin- 
istration of government and making a mockery of justice. 
Their constant endeavor has been to suppress unwelcome 
truths, to muzzle or annihilate all opposition, and by inter- 
ference in secular matters to intrench themselves more 
and more firmly with each passing year. Who does not 
recall with execration the "holy" men who made it their 
business to persecute such discoverers of scientific facts 
and principles as Galileo and Copernicus, and compelled 



142 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

them to renounce and repudiate their views or pay the 
penalty with their lives? And who does not shudder at 
the mere mention of the infamous and bloody horrors of 
the Spanish Inquisition, or recall with shame the burning 
of the so-called witches in New England? 

What have these misguided, self -constituted inter- 
preters of the divine will to show for all the crimes they 
have committed in the name of God? The successors 
of these religious zealots, still inflated with pride and 
infatuated with pomp as of yore, would like to continue 
to destroy the messengers that God has sent to enlighten 
the human race as to the operation of the natural laws 
relating to man's existence and function in the universe. 
For nearly two thousand years mankind has readily 
bowed, or has been forced to bow, to the will of these 
self-styled representatives of God. Their conception of 
Deity, foisted on an intellectually helpless people, made 
ignorance a saving virtue and intelligence a crime punish- 
able by death. The wrath of these "birds of pray," as 
they have been called with a significant play on words, 
would be visited on all real messengers of God today, 
were it not that they are to some extent shorn of their 
power by those who for nineteen centuries were a power- 
less minority. 

It is futile to expect a beneficent fruition of either 
religion or material science while mankind is under the 
dominance of so undeveloped an order of mind. In 
many respects the animate creatures that environ man 
display more acumen than he, since he is often a lazy 
land-lubber, making no better use of his five senses than 
does his cat, his dog, or his pig. His soul, like that 
of the animal, is still in a state of cosmic gestation. He 
has only the limited physical senses as avenues of infor- 
mation; and yet, though spiritually blind, he presumes 



Knowledge a Child Should Acquire J43 

to interpret the will of God ! Maeterlinck's brief symbolic 
play, "The Blind," conveys to the mind, by deft touches 
and artful suggestion, the fate of the spiritually blind 
when their leader, a blind priest, dies, leaving them to 
the mercy of a snowstorm. 

In studying the laws of Nature and their diverse objec- 
tive phenomena, one is really studying the law of mind. 
The various grades of manifestation of consciousness in 
Nature can only thus be classified and their functions 
understood; and this applies also to spirit-man. We are 
able to trace his progress, step by step, until finally he is 
sufficiently evolved to become cognizant of the more 
ethereal phenomena of spirit through his ordinary senses, 
and Nature becomes to him an open book. It is at this 
most significant epoch in his development that man really 
comes to be a human being — a soul emancipated from 
the thraldom of his animal consciousness. 

We need schools for children, youths, and even adults 
in which they can receive instruction in the process of 
normal unfoldment of the attributes of mind, in order 
that they may become seers and learn fully to compre- 
hend the more ethereal spiritual regions that environ 
them. "What wilt thou have?" said Emerson. "Pay 
for it and take it. Conditions — such conditions as sincere 
purpose, concentration, pure desire, and an upright life — 
constitute the price to be paid. Comply, and you shall 
hear the sweet voices of the loved ones whose earthly 
bodies repose beneath the willows in the valley." If 
you will pay the price in serious, normal, creative think- 
ing, your soul will know, through command over its 
senses, the rapturous glories and majesties of Nature. 

Men and women will be willing to pay Nature's price 
for unfoldment of the mind as soon as the normal way 
is made plain, no matter what language they speak, since 



144 Man: Whence and Whither ? 

human feelings, emotions, and desires constitute the uni^ 
versal language of the soul. If you do not like or enjoy 
the conscious plane on which you now reside, just aban- 
don all your disagreeable mental belongings and move 
to the next higher conscious plane. And if you are 
willing mentally to continue to pay the price, just keep 
on moving upward, all the while adding increased pleas- 
ure, delight, joy, and wealth of knowledge to your soul. 

Man should realize that he exists and functions in an 
ocean of mind, to the bounteous stores of which all have 
equal access in working out their destiny. All should 
make haste to fulfil the sacred duty they owe to them- 
selves, and when they have found their immortal selves, 
the effulgence of their souls will ever illuminate the way 
to grander and higher planes of consciousness. In their 
upward course they will be accompanied by countless 
hosts that are likewise tending toward a more complete 
manifestation of the divine attributes latent within them. 

It is well worth while to think and to labor incessantly 
to know yourself. In so doing, you become acquainted 
with your soul's inheritance, the value of which, now 
and forever, only the language of deep, joyful emotion 
can ever express. Have you a heroic will to begin now 
to work out your soul's destiny? Then seize the 
moment, for now is the accepted time. And if you 
choose aright and persevere on the chosen path, you will 
join in time in the victorious anthems chanted by the 
unnumbered hosts that have risen aloft — anthems whose 
surges of sublime melody, expressive of a spiritual rap- 
ture that passeth all understanding, blend as a terrestrial 
overtone with the unutterable music of the spheres. 



/ 



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